Tuesday
Sep152009
I'm This Many
September 15, 2009 Let's see if you can guess how old these cake celebrants are:
(Ah, phone orders, how I love thee...)This next one's a bit harder because of the lousy penmanship, but give it a minute: it'll come to you.
Did you get it? Huh? Didja?
Seriously, how fabulous is this? The baker took a simple two-word inscription ("You're 31!"), turned it into a three-word inscription, and then misspelled every word. ("Your thirtee won")
And then there's that comma. Just look at it, sitting there all nonchalantly, mocking my every attempt to comprehend its existence. Grr. I tell ya, if there's one thing I hate, it's smug punctuation marks. Yeah. It's all, "Hey, you should pause for breath here, even though the sentence has technically already ended." Aaaugghh!!
I can't take it anymore!
The comma must be stopped!!
[patting down hair]
Ahem.
So, where were we?
Oh, right. Well, I have no idea how old Alicia here is...
...but at least there are no stinkin' commas.Jennifer S., Cari B., & Alicia W., I've noticed that more people are suggesting I take a day off lately. I have no idea why.
- Related Wreckage: Tassel Hassles
Reader Comments (104)
Took me a minute to get the first one.
The second one is... well, I think you pretty much covered it.
And the third, well, someone needs to learn how to spell. It wasn't bad aside from that.
The second one is not a misspelling. "Thirtee" is just the name of their racing horse. And the rest of the inscription is obviously on the other side of the cake. It says "and now you're rich!"
You know, she's a tweenager.
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
Added to the list of things every bakery manager should ask their new hirees to spell (in addition to "Congratulations" and "birthday") are numbers. Who knew they would prove to be so hard? Oh wait, Cake Wrecks readers...
Sorry, I have to stop reading this blog. The stupidity factor out there is starting to depress me.
bwahahahaha, what a great start to my day!
The third was such a cute cake too, to bad they made it all confusing, I can't eat it until I figure out just what that is supposed to mean.
Is she twenty? Because the cake looks a little jouvinile.
Is she a tween? That would make more sense, but I didn't know they celebrated with cake for that.
And if it has anything to do with a tweet, or twitter, or anything of that nature, I am throwing my computer out the window.
I'll do it!
Becky
I think that last cake was attempting to say "twentieth", but I'm not entirely sure. :/
Maybe she's a tween of indeterminate age.
My guess is Alicia is ten or twelve. You know, a "tweener". Or something,
Halfway 230 . . . that's pretty amazing! Considering I want to live to 104, even halfway 230 is beating that!
I don't think Alicia *wants* anyone to know how old she is. Kind of like Aunt Mary in Anne of Ingleside (part of the Anne of Green Gables series) by LM Montgomery. Remember her 55 yellow roses, 55 candles on the cake and her subsequent departure? (Much to the family's relief!) Alicia is taking no chances!
I'm an English teacher . . . don't get me started on those misplaced commas!!!!!
I think Alicia is 20. That is a horrible misspelling of twentieth.
Which is a good argument for not trying to spell out the numbers. Just use the number and the handy "th". 20th. See? Easy.
(And Jen, it's okay to take some time off before your book tour. You well deserve it!)
Who wants to congratulate a 15-year-old on being halfway to 30, anyway? (Well, I'm pretty sure it's not a 115-year-old.)
Ironically, the last cake could have used a comma before "Alicia."
tweeteenth = 22nd?
I have no idea how old Alicia is either...I would guess 20, except for the banana-yellow pumpkin carriage.
...why is it yellow again, anyway?
Some of these cakes just make me feel so much better about my amateur skills and these certainly do! :)
I'm guessing Alicia is 20.
Since I am older than thirtee won and therefore well past tweeteen, my only hope left is to get one of these cakewrecks on my 115th birthday.
WV: dilie - No dilie-dallying here! Obviously haste made (cakewreck) waste.
Oh, but I suspect the comma's riding in style inside the pumpkin carriage. Just because we can't see the comma, it doesn't mean it's not there, mocking us silently from within. Once lowly and functional, if pure and grammatical, then transported through wishful grammar magic into a life where it now travels anywhere it wants to go, doing none of the actual work for which it was originally intended.
Maybe the second cake is the beginning of an old english poem about the winning of 'thirtee' dollars, and we just can't see the second part.
Mm-hm. I'm sticking with that.
My guess is Alicia is finally old enough to be obnoxious with Twitter.
It looks like the inscription reads, your thirties won. I have no idea what that would mean, but at least the words wouldn't be misspelled.
Ri.
The second cake isn't so bad - well, except for the penmanship. It just says "your thirties won" - no misspellings if you read it that way. And the comma would even be okay if there was a name on the cake. "Your thirties won, Jen." They beat you. :)
Jen.... you rock!
Is your tweeteenth birthday the one where you're finally old enough to have a Twitter account? If so, congratulations, @Alicia!
I thought the You're thirty one one said "Youn thinkr won" which I chose to interpret as "You think wrong". But what you said makes a lot more sense than an Engrish^2 birthday cake insulting it's chosen recipient.
"Tweeteenth" aside, I love that simple Cinderella's carriage. I might copy that one for DD's birthday. It's definitely do-able for an amateur like me. As a bonus, I can spell!
"Half way 230" looks like the work of someone who's entirely too familiar with 420.
You know what are worse than misplaced commas? Misplased apostrophes. And it isn't just cakes. There is this instrument store near me...IN NEON they assert that they sell piano's and keyboard's. IN NEON.
I think they took the comma that belonged on the third cake and splatted it on the second cake.
I'm pretty sure my sister, brother, and I all had tweeteeners the same year. We were about to adopt them out to other families and only accept them back when they were civilized a la the old feudal system.
What's a tweeteenth??
We sometimes use these cakes to teach grammar, spelling and punctuation to junior high students
Unfortunately for Alicia, you turn into a pumpkin at midnight on your "Tweeteenth" birthday. That's why most people avoid having this particular birthday.
http://www.adnoxious.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">adnoxious.blogspot.com
Taking aim at lousy advertising
I thought for a moment that maybe the yellow pumpkin was actually an onion coach a la Shrek, but no, that greenery is definitely vine-ish! Maybe it's halfway between morphing from orange to gold?
Oh, these are classic wrecks. Hilarious! And your commentary is always spot on, Jen. Can't wait to see you in Austin! (Then you can take a break!)
Cheers!
Commas, I believe, are underutilized, as are, I believe, dictionaries,
WV: larde Larde, these are some wrecky cakes!
I think Alicia is Sweet 16, but that it was a phone order.
????
@ Anon 10:05 -
Best comment ever! You're my new hero!
Technically, the third one should have a comma, despite your hatred towards them. Since the cake is addressing Alicia, there should be one between birthday and Alicia.
I bet the first one is supposed to mean that they are turning 25. It is sometimes said that the person is half-way to 30 there meaning that they are half-way between 20 and 30. The message still got lost in translation but it makes more sense than for a 15-yr-old's birthday. If only people could learn to spell.
Maybe Alicia has been Tweeting for 10 months???
i like the pumpkin one.
I thought that the middle cake read "Your thirteen now," which somehow doesn't seem quite as bad as "thirtee won".
Oh! I thought the middle one was supposed to be "You're thirteen now", and the decorator had dyslexia! I see now, there's no "n", either. Wow. thirtee won.
And the first one... 115? ;)
What is that the third one? An heirloom tomato on wheels?
I like how Alicia is represented by a Pumpkin Carriage.
hmm interesting.
i think the last one might be trying to say "twenteen"
Here, all my friends said you're not twenty your 'twenteen', so still a teenager.
i think its to ease you into the twenties...and adult hood.
so maybe that was what it was supposed to say but got misspelled!
as ever, who knows.
katie (what-katie-does.blogspot)
And is the third cake a picture of a yellow onion? It's definitely not a pumpkin!! And Shrek had a white onion. So I just don't know.
Staggering how ppl make such glaring mistakes.
~Amy B
Hey, the world's oldest lady died last week, at the age of 115- halfway to 230. Maybe there is something to that cake....
Jen, love the blog, love the posts. And I have to do this.. ok maybe not, but I'm caving in to temptation anyway:
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:D