Party

A few days before Christmas I went to a party. I didn’t know many people there, but I knew Julie and her partner Elaine, who goes by Laine. I didn’t know the hostess at all, but people in Julie and Laine’s crowd are very hospitable.

So, I let myself in the front door of this stranger’s house – forty five minutes late, I might add – and I was hungry. I left a hostess gift in the kitchen (an amaryllis) and went down to the party in the basement.

Right now you’re thinking I went to the wrong house and they set the dogs on me. Given the predictability of this blog, I don’t blame you for that. But those things didn’t happen.

I said hi to Julie, and then I dragged her in my wake to the buffet, because I was hungry and I was worried I’d missed all the food.

There was a cake dome on the buffet that looked almost exactly like this:

“Cake?” said the cake dome, quietly. “You like cake? Eat some cakkkkeeee.”

“CAKE!” I shouted, and pulled off the dome. There was an exquisite bundt cake. “Julie, there’s cake here! I need some of this cake right now. Where’s a knife?”

“Upstairs!” Julie said happily. “Do you want me to get one?”

“No, I can do it,” I said, because I don’t mind rooting around through cutlery that isn’t mine, especially at a party. I appreciate it when my guests do that instead of bothering me.

So I went upstairs, partly to get a knife and partly to admire this gorgeous house. It’s a South Side bungalow I would kill for. The knives were in the first drawer I looked in, damnit, so I had no excuse to admire anything else, so I went back down and had a delicious slice of strudel-filled cinnamon bundt cake. Since it was filled, the cut displayed a particularly cunning cross-section. I ate a bite and exclaimed loudly over how good it was.

About an hour later, I was sitting by Laine when she said, “I need to get some of that cake.”

“It’s wonderful,” I said, “and it’s so pretty.”

“Thanks,” Laine said, “I made it.” She’s an excellent cook.

Laine was finishing her slice of delicious bundt cake when someone came out with a sheet cake, and I remembered that this was not a Christmas party, but a birthday party shared by Julie and the hostess. (There was an awkward moment when I sang, “Happy birthday dear Julie” when everyone else sang “Happy birthday dear [hostess].”)

When we were done blowing out candles, someone said, “Now for Julie’s cake. HEY! Someone ate some of Julie’s cake.”

Yes. The bundt cake I had defiled was actually Julie’s birthday cake.

I turned to Laine in horror. Horror. Then I realized she had herself taken a slice of cake to lessen my inevitable humiliation, much like Queen Victoria drinking out of the finger bowl.

That particular humiliation will never ever happen to me again. If I’m at a party, I’m shunning all cakes until I have determined the cake’s purpose in the grand scheme of things. I will no longer assume all birthday cakes are dressed in candles and buttercream frosting, instead of skulking around under vintage cake domes and tasting all sophisticated.