Handyman and the Cake

Just before Christmas, our church had a Progressive Supper, which, if you don't know, is a multi-course meal that is served at different people's homes.  Soup is at one place, the main course at another, and desserts at yet another home.

So anyway, I decided to bring a dessert.

If you know me, you'll know that I'm not a big fan of desserts of any kind, because I don't really care about sweets.

(I'll pause a minute to allow you to recover from your shock and horror.)

Nope, I don't care for sweets.  Carbs?  Yes.  Carbs I crave.  Give me a slice of hot bread slathered with butter any day over ice cream.

I say all this to heighten your awareness when I state, "I decided to bring a dessert".

Not just any dessert - a Martha Stewart dessert.  To be specific, I chose to make a three tiered Coconut Column Cake that involved 23 egg whites, two real coconuts, coconut extract, a special syrup that was poured over each layer of cake, an egg white meringue topping, 2 pounds of butter, and every pan in my house.

Three long hours later, I had a beautiful cake to bring to the Progressive Supper.  I was so excited! 

All bundled up against the cold winter evening, I carried my cake out to the car.  Our backyard is edged with a fence, and because of all the cold and freezing rain, the gate had frozen shut.  I put the cake down on the ground in front of me so that I could try to wrench the gate open.  (I couldn't put it anywhere else because the snow was over a foot deep everywhere except the walkway.)  Despite my best efforts, however, I couldn't get it to open, so Handyman gave it a try.  Thankfully, due to his manly man-ness, he was able to free us from the confines of our back yard.

Then, for the oddest reason, he bent down and stuck his fist in the center of my cake; my beautiful, three-hours-of-effort, 2 pounds of butter, 23 egg whites cake.

At this point, I lost it.  I am usually a rather even keeled sort of person (I think), but I am rather ashamed to admit that I had a first class grade A temper tantrum.

Me: "WHY IN THE ($*%$%& WOULD YOU DO SUCH A STUPID THING?!!!!!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGG!!!!"

Handyman: "I thought it was a snowdrift."

Which he follows up with my shrugging his shoulders and saying, "At least now it's very Hawaiian.  It has a crater."

I could have cheerfully dismembered him and stuffed him into the couch if he weren't so tall and it would have made us late for the Progressive Supper (and horrified the babysitter).

 The Progressive Supper was fantastic.  It was fun getting to see how the different homes were decorated.

Thankfully I was able to salvage my poor cake and still serve it with the other desserts.  The "Column" part of the cake was sadly leaning like the famed tower of Pisa. 

At the end of the night, it was all good. The cake tasted amazing, we had a great time, and I won the group game which involved catching other people saying the taboo word, "Cold" and stealing their bell necklace.

Best yet?

I got Handyman's bell necklace.

Revenge is sweet.