I knew the exact moment when I ruined my son's birthday cake this morning: I'd rushed and mishandled the chocolate so that it wouldn't combine properly with the egg whites. If I were on the Great British Baking Show, I would have dumped the whole mess in the trash and started over, but I'd already used all the chocolate and I didn't want to drive to town to buy more and I don't have multiple mixers and bowls or a staff to clean up my messes and I just didn't have time to deal with it, so I guess my son is getting a flop cake for his birthday. I'll spoon some cherries and whipped cream on top. No one will ever know what it was supposed to look like.
Except me, of course. Always my own worst critic.
The reason I didn't have time to start over is that I'm scheduled for a long-delayed mammogram today, a prospect that fills me with what I would call The Twisties if I were an Olympic gymnast flinging myself into the air instead of a harried mom trying to fling together a birthday cake. Nobody gets a mammogram for fun, of course, but the prospect of being manhandled and brutally smooshed fills me with an internal twisting that makes it hard to concentrate on mundane matters like the right method for melting chocolate.
I should have known better than to try to do anything requiring coherent thought on a day when I have a mammogram scheduled. Like many people, I postponed basic medical care during lockdown, so this summer I've been catching up on eye exams and dental care and routine diagnostic tests. Someone should create a routine diagnostic test to measure how the prospect of getting routine diagnostic tests can disrupt a person's mental state, as measured on a scale of birthday-cake floppage. Dental x-rays: no disruption at all; a beautiful and delicious cherry-filled Swiss roll results. Eye exam involving puffs of air, bright lights, and dilation: moderate disruption resulting in a flattish cake with droopy layers. Mammogram: maximum disruption resulting in a so-called "cake" that's unrecognizable and possibly inedible.
Fortunately, my son is a full-grown reasonable person unlikely to throw a tantrum over a ruined birthday cake, but that won't stop me from apologizing about a million times, even though it's not entirely my fault. I could blame the mammogram, but what does my son know about that kind of--well, discomfort hardly does justice to the situation. Garage door slamming down on your most sensitive bodily parts is more accurate but who wants to imagine such a thing over supper?
Let 'im eat cake. Even a flop cake is better than no cake at all, and whipped cream can cover a multitude of sins.
No comments:
Post a Comment