Getting EXACTLY What You Ask For
September 6, 2012 Ever wonder how a wreck gets ordered?
"I'd like a dragon cake, and could you have it breathing flame onto the cake board?"
;)
"...And her name is Jayce. Like Joyce, but with an 'a,' not an 'o.'"
;)
(For the longest time I couldn't figure out what "a-noPanO" meant. Finally I gave up and looked up the original e-mail.)
"Oh, you're writing this down? Great. Just write, 'Good luck, Kim.' And in big letters, could you add 'Have fun!' on the form, too? Thanks!"
;)
"I'd like it to say, 'Thank you, Lord.' Just put 'Thank you' on one side of the cross, and 'Lord' on the other."
;)
(I don't think the wreckerator understands the true gravity of this situation.)
"I'd like it to have 'Happy Birthday, Dad,' and under that a king of hearts playing card."
;)
It turns out that in this bakery, a picture is only worth five words.
Thanks to Abigail, Jim K., Nikolaos J., Misty K., & Kelly C., who was secretly hoping for an "Under Neat That" on the last cake. Weren't you, Kelly? It's ok, you can admit it; I was, too.
Reader Comments (48)
No, my dear, I made it clear
Frosted flames would have been fun
Gee, that’s lame, I called myself
A-noPan O’s just not fun
So, Kim’s cake fills me with dread
The Lord’s cake hits a new low
Gee, my baker is brain dead
If she writes out Dad’s cake so.
(No, flame, gee, Pan, so, Lord’s, gee, so….)
Bwoops! I should have started that with "Sung to the 'Doe, A deer'" song.
Jayce's cake has such a nice font, too!
So close and yet....so very, very far......
Has it never occurred to these bakeries to have a standard form to use that has a space for what should be ON the cake, and then a space at the bottom EXPLAINING it? That way they would not get examples like this. Although I shouldn't share this high tech solution, since it would eliminate about half of the Cake Wrecks submissions.
Now I have the urge to watch The Sound of Music.
My daughter's birthday is next Saturday. Her name is not very common, so I'm a little nervous about ordering her cake for just this *type* of reason! Thankfully, she'll only be two so she won't get offended if it's screwed up.
Hey, at least on the "Thank You....... Lord" cake, the piping and flowers are nicely done, and the cross is centered, and looks like a cross... (I'm turning over a new leaf, see. The voices said I should, see. So I'm finding something nice to say about wrecks, see. I now say "see" a lot, too, see. The voices said I should, see... Aheh...).
Sorry, Sharyn, but I was hearing Sinatra singing My Way.
But I had a little trouble working that last line in.
Sharyn, I really thought you'd lost the plot for a second there. Works much better when you know the tune! ;o)
Apart from that - do these people step back, look at what they've done and think 'yep, nailed it'?
DO THEY????
Did Theadare get to BADKarma?
I'm with BADKarma. At least the cross, while brown, doesn't look like poop.
Love the cakes, always (and the commentary, which really MAKES the site)... but I also find myself immediately looking for Sharyn's songs.
Excuse me, must go clean up where my brain exploded....
As my mom used to say, "Well-done is not always done well". The cakes are nicely decorated, neatly lettered (well, except for Dad's), and look delicious... But at the same time, they're soooo WRONG!
So, BADKarma, there's this cat named Theardare, see...
Awwww. The dragon is cute! Maybe he's a phonics dragon, like in that kid's show "Word World? lol
Aheh. Heheh. Ahhaahahahahaha! Ahem. Sorry. I just thought it was funny that pagopago thought these kinds of wrecks would be avoided by adding a box to the form. Sorry, no offense, pagopago, but I think you have more confidence in the wreckerators than I do!
I don't know why, but that dragon one just tickles me. Like maybe dragons never did breath fire. It was just the power of suggestion that made everyone THINK dragons were breathing fire. Sadly, this power is highly ineffective in written form.
On the King of Hearts cake, the first word looks like 'Hoppy' and there isn't actually a 't' in Birthday. They just crossed the 'h'.
I hope y'all and your dogs are feeling better today!
Aww. BADKarma, you must be missing Theardare. Sit right down here in room 101 and I'll go get him. I hear he's been practicing "I Don't Want to Walk Without You". That should help you stop saying 'see', but it may give you a slight rash. There are some other side effects - drooling, random hiccups, short term memory loss, an uncontrolable urge to Bedazzle....(shhh, I, uh, ink-thay it-way as-hay -omething-say o-tay o-day ith-way eardare's-Thay ITCH-PAY-don't tell him I said that. He's thinking about trying to become a judge on American Idol now that Randy Jackson is leaving and won't be there to call everyone 'Dawg'. Theardare says his catch phrase will be, "You are one cool cat!")
All of these look pretty nice except the last one. I still haven't figured out what those red and green things are.
But it truly takes a heavenly perspective to enjoy the cake with the cross. Because those of us looking at it from table level have broken our necks twisting and turning so we can read it.
It says Happy BirPhday and a-noPan O; my gobble translator tells me this means that Jayce has just rec'd her 7th Doctorate from the Obscure Translation department at the University of Bir. You're welcome.
We didn't do so well with Gpod Lyck Kim who is *not* going to have fun on the farm.
The last one .... NO, going to go write shopping lists longhand and meditate on the uses of a single sheet of black sugarpaper...
Those look like flowers of some sort. One doesn't have its leaves for whatever reason. This small detail is, of course, trumped by the larger error.
Agreed that having a separate box for instructions from what should be on the cake (perhaps even three boxes, for Images, Words, and Instructions) wouldn't eliminate Literal LOLs, but I do think they would be reduced somewhat.
If they're ordered over the phone, I imagine some training in basic interpretation of instructions -- and asking the right questions to clarify -- would help a lot.
Here's one for the record book of misfires
When my son was about 5 or 6 we ordered two cakes one from a bakery (I ordered it myself) and one from the grocery store (Grandma ordered). When we went to pick the cake up from the grocery store, this one was for his classmates, the girl had an odd look on her face. She set the cake down and said I'm sorry for the mistake but I really need to fix this. I asked her what was wrong and she was carefully fixing the mistake. When she put the cake on the counter for me to see it was my turn to make the face. I asked what was wrong with the cake before you "fixed" it. The poor girl said the name was spelled wrong.
Well my son wanted to see the cake so I picked him up sot he could get a better look. The first words out of his mouth was "Why is my name spelled wrong?' The girl said it's spelled correctly. He said no it's not and he spelled his name. Her face turned pale and she finally pulled the ticket and found that his name was spelled correctly BEFORE she "fixed" it. At this point there was no fixing the fix. My son said "Mommy is this is why we always go to the bakery? They always spell my name the right way!"
WHAT are those red & green blobs around the edge of Dad's cake?
I totally see "have fun on the farm"
...it doesn't really help the car theme or the "in big letters".
ah well.
I see "Have fun on the farm!" too (and I can't get the Wiggles song out of my head...)!
Someone's gotta say it and if no one else will, I will.
WHAT makes some people so fudging STUPID???
The "Thank you Lord" cake reminds me of the late, lamented George Carlin's routine about growing up Catholic: smart-aleck boys in catechism class asking the priest, "If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so big that He Himself can't lift it?" If God is all-powerful, can He make a cake inscription that defies gravity?
The sad thing is that the cake forms at grocery stores do have a separate box for instructions, at least in the store I work. I'm not sure all do though. I've only seen a couple cakes with our tags on them, but Walmart tags seem to be all over this site so maybe they don't use the same type of forms?
Sharyn, the song was much better once I knew what melody to use. I was so confused trying to figure out how to sing it.
Love, love, love the scaly ECHIDNAsaurus. It eats Ents of course.
@Sharyn: Playing Guess The Melody today, eh? Teehee. I'm not sure what tune I sang your lyrics to, but it went much more smoothly when I sang it to the right one! And your last line made sense.
@gobbler: hee! Love your "translation" of the first cake!
@mykona: Might I ask what your son's name is? And what they "fixed" it to? With the wide variety in spellings of names these days, wouldn't you think she would have checked the form BEFORE correcting it? Or you know, showing it to you, since you were RIGHT THERE. I'm glad to see you are teaching your child such a valuable lesson in cake ordering. Keep up the good work!
Reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote: "There are two great disappointments in life: not getting what you want, and getting what you want."
@Robin: the red and green things are rosebuds around the last cake.
I'm starting to wonder if there are really this many cake decorators this stupid but still somehow have good handwriting. It's starting to feel like they're trolling just so they get on Cake Wrecks.
Aww, the dragon is so cute!! Too bad he looks so sheepish about not being able to demonstrate real flame-breathing.
It's a shame about Jayce's unfortunate mishap... the cake looks pretty decent otherwise.
I, too, think the dragon looks embarrassed. Maybe he failed his flaming test and still only has a learner's permit?
Ahh the literal lol's, my favorite :D
Is there something wrong with me for thinking the dragon cake was going to be on fire?
My brain is still trying to get around the nopano thing lol. My headache isn't helping matters so my brain just might explode before I figure any of this out..if that ever happens I am going to chase all the wreckerators around their cakes and make them eat them lol. Man they must think we will buy anything..
So...what does A-noPanO mean???
Also, to the commenters, it wasn't "have fun on the farm" but "have fun on the FORM", which is infinitely funnier.
:)
The "Thank You Lord" cake made me think of antique quilts. Sometimes, you see the blocks oriented to either side of the center (similar to the cake lettering) though usually they're set so that they "read" correctly from the sides. Maybe the decorator was giving an oblique nod to that very old style? No?
Darlene: it means "a, not an O"--as in, not Joyce.
As so many others have said, WHY oh WHY are so many bakery workers so STUPID?? Can anyone shed some light? Can there be THAT many people for whom English is a second language and they simply copy what is written without understanding it? Or is the work so fast-paced that one simply stops reading what is written and just copies it blindly? So many people out of work, so many much more talented, competent, thoughtful people out there who could and would do a better job!
I'd like to know if people got discounts on their cake wrecks. Did they complain? Or explanations and apologies from staff?
These all DO make me laugh, but also drive me a little crazy and prone to ranting...!!
Maybe because my job is graphic production (Sort of editing for designers.) I have to be able to spot ALL kinds of errors daily and that skill tends to spill over into the rest of my life. And I certainly wouldn't get anywhere in MY job if I allowed errors like these go through!
It's a shame: that first cake is actually cute, although I would've used cut up cupcakes to build legs instead of globbing on thick stripes of frosting. The dragon totally could've been breating a little plume of red and orange fire instead of sticking out his tongue.
Ew. A second look suggests that his head is made entirely of frosting. Again: moar cake plz.
@oakmom...That is extremely harsh. It's not as easy as it look and not all cake decorators are that bad. It is a lot of work and very demanding.They are just mistakes which happens to everyone and yes they probably got their cake for free. As I said that wouldn't happen where I work and if it does I make them a new cake on the spot.
I had no idea now true to life this comic was until I started reading this blog.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=398298578856&set=a.189489993856.125585.185381373856&type=1&relevant_count=1
Reading the (a-not an o) part made me chuckle, especially since a-noPano means something in my mothertongue. They're two separate words that mean "what" and "how". I love how it adds more comedic value.
I am still wondering what the little boys name was and what it was fixed to. Also did anyone notice that the cross was plastic? It could have been placed to the right in the empty space and if "Lord" had of been spelled going the same way as the "Thank you" it would have made sense. (but that would be asking too much...it was all done with mirrors..lol)
The Jayce one says an A not an O- the not an looks too curvy so it looks like Pan FYI
That's what you get when you give a kid a stupid name like Jayce