The 2010 Birthday Cake Experience

Long-time readers of this blog will know that getting my own birthday cake is no easy task. It's the one day of the year that I don't make cake (or think about cake, or have anything at all to do with cake) and so I generally give DH the job of satisfying my birthday sweet tooth.

I have very few requirements for said cake...which is not traditional cake but ice cream cake (because I love ice cream, and actually don't really like traditional cake. Go figure.)

So. Michelle's Birthday Cake (tm) needs to be:
1. Not vanilla
2. Not Dairy Bell.
3. Not organised by me.
4. Have my name on it.
5. Be organised ahead of time so that my name can be put on it AND it will be a flavour I like.

That's it. Seems easy, right? You all know the original story and if you don't you can read it here. Last year was marginally better in so far as it did meet all the requirements - technically speaking - but the entire thing was about an inch high and therefore had a distinct air of pathetic about it. This year, my girlfriends were going to organise the cake (and therefore save DH yet more misery over this issue.)

Here is where the story digresses a bit.

My version:
A couple of weeks ago, I said to DH, "Did The Neighbour's Wife call you?" and he said, "No." So I assumed TNW had forgotten about it (which is no big deal, shit happens.) Some days later I said to DH, "Ok, so for my birthday all you need to do is organise the cake, and fix my chair." (A cane chair I love which needs repairing. I wanted the repair as my official birthday present.)

His version:
A couple of weeks ago, I said to DH, "Did The Neighbour's Wife call you?" and he said, "No." But apparently by then I had already told him that my friends were organising it. So when I then said, "Ok, so for my birthday all you need to do is organise the cake, and fix my chair," he thought I meant he had to do cake as well as THEM doing cake. (And he never questioned why I would need two of them in the first place.)

...and here's where we are now:
A couple of days before my birthday, DH runs into my work kitchen saying, "Quick, quick, I need a freezer! I need a freezer!" Apparently he had gone to get said cake but forgot his house keys (and it was a very hot day). So he stopped at my workplace to get the cake into a freezer before it died totally. Then he asked if I wouldn't mind bringing it home with me.

Really? You want me to ORGANISE anything about this cake? Yeah. NO.

Fast forward a couple of days, and DH went to pick up the cake from work (serves him right, sheesh.)

So in the end...

He got me:
- A totally generic cake from the cabinet. No personalisation. Not organised ahead of time. On the plus side, it was a flavour I like and it wasn't from Dairy Bell. Still, effort out of 10, maybe 5?

They got me:
- A gelati cake which was not personalised, but was organised in terms of being ordered ahead of time, specific flavours requested and then picked up and delivered so I had nothing at all to do with it. Effort out of 10, I'm going to say 10...because really, it's not their job at all. It's his job!

*sigh* Considering I start to prep DH about this several months in advance, he really has no excuse. And he *is* getting better at it all...so I'm thinking by the time I'm 50, he'll get it right. Baby steps, baby steps...except that of course by the time I'm 50 I'll probably be damn sick of ice cream cakes.

Sigh. He (and I) can't win.