The Abbreviation Sensation Sweeping the Nation
July 21, 2010 
When your "Yay Jesus" crowds out the rest of the text, you cut a few corners on the "birthday" to cram it all in. Ok, fine. I get it.The problem started when some wreckerator somewhere looked at that and thought, "Hey, that saves me four whole letters! I should write it that way ALL the time!"
And so...[dramatically steepling fingers]...it began.
First a dash was added, to make it seem more respectable:
It's an unwritten rule in baking that you can butcher a name as much as you like, so long as it's followed by a question mark.Then they ditched the 'B':
Next, the "day":
The first 28 were delicious.And finally, inevitably, we arrived at...this.
One can only hope they were charging by the letter.
It's like a code. Am I wishing you a happy birthday? Maybe, maybe not. I might be wishing you a Herniated Bowels day. Because, yeah, I do that sometimes.
And yet, shockingly, we still haven't gotten to the worst part of this whole abbreviation craze.
Think with me for a moment: are there any holidays out there that might not do well in an abbreviated form? Any at all? C'mon. Think about it.
Give up?
Oh, good. I'm positively itching to show you this last photo.
It's a Valentine's Day cake. Scout's honor.
Reader Comments (96)
Enjoy your VD? Oh BOY. Are you sure that's a Valentines cake, and not a passive-aggressive shot by a jilted lover? "Oh, sweeeeeetheart, I didn't want to stay with you forever anyway. Btw, I have herpes! Enjoy, ta-ta for now! xoxo"
I so needed that laugh today - TY!
WV: desserd - If you gave me that VD cake, you desserd what you get...
Geez Louise, those are some whoppers today...especially the VD cake! My eye is twitching...
Clearly, the person who takes the order shoulders half the responsibility for these wrecks. Oh, sure, "HB" is a good abbreviation for "Happy Birthday", but only if you are the one who will be armed with the piping bag. (Like my grocery list often reads: "TP, PT, PP, GG". I know what that means, but I wouldn't trust it to anyone else.)
And thanks for the new "Beth" cake. Emailed the "Betch" cake to my friend Beth, and she wasn't sure how to take it. By the way, is that a brownie cake or just some really bad icing job?
wv: lepin
"Lepin lizards, Batman, them's some ugly cakes."
Oh no...that last cake is from Marble Slab! At least the cake would be totally delicious!
VD???? Bwahahahahaha!!!!
"Yeah, for VD I gave my old woman flowers from Wal-Mart, a box of stale chocolates, and syphillis."
OMG OMG! LOL
OK, so "bday" I get, even if I prefer writing out the full word (like it's so long and hard to spell ... oh, wait). But just "H" for happy? Really, people? It's someone's special day, and you can't even be bothered to write out a 5-letter word for a positive emotion?
The VD one is hilarious, though! I'd love to see a doctor take advantage of that one to promote testing.
I haven't laughed like this over a blog post in a very, very long time.
"HB DAY" would be in celebration of pencils?
Oh, the VD takes the cake for sure! And your witty "hunk of burning love" comment at the end made my morning!
LOL that last cake is a riot! and possibly an insult, underlined with a sweet pink heart shape and all its irony.
HB Emil sounds like a secret code...(He's Back, Emil! Hide Booty, Emil! Hide Body Emil) etc.
then poor Nat. do they not know his name or whether or not to wish him a happy B-day? maybe it's not birthday (again, code).
Happy Day with the tie dye airbrush looks trippy! I wonder if they're celebrating a good mood induced by controlled substances.
and #1 is very puzzling. "Yay Jesus?" Is this is a very Christian group and they're celebrating their faith and a birthday? Unless Erin is giving a cake to Jesus and had the inscription written like a note instead of a normal inscription. Or again, we are assuming it's a birthday and maybe it's not and she's congratulating Jesus on something else...
too much thinking today! i feel like i'm trying to solve a puzzle
*snort* Yes, because one should ALWAYS enjoy their VD. "Honey, I promise, you're gonorrhea-lly love this cake." HA!
The whole "Yay Jesus" thing made me too distracted to enjoy the post.
Hi Boob Nazi,
Yeah. We looked really hard for another one but that was really the best cake for the flow of the post. I'm pretty sure no offense was meant on the cake though.
Sorry about that,
john
It's a Valentine's Day cake ---- yeahhhhhh, surrre it is.
I'd rather think it was from some guy's girlfriend to his wife. But then, I'm twisted like that, and think it would be a great one to insert into a murder mystery.
~~Di
WV: [blank] - now what??
My friend makes cookies on Valentine's Day and writes Happy VD on them purposely to mess with people.
Oh.My.Dang. That last one is KILLER! Lolololol
Does anyone else notice that on the HB Day "cake" someone snitched a cupcake from the top right? Or were we all distracted by "Yay Jesus" and Happy VD?
This is quite the Wrecktacular Wrecktacular.
I remember back in grade school, a parent brought in a plate full of heart-shaped cookies for the whole class on Valentine's Day. The cookies all had "Happy VD" written on them in icing.
Good times.
OMG enjoy your VD???? I highly doubt anyone would be enjoying a venereal disease! lol
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These cakes are hilarious! I'm just wondering if the "Nat" cake was supposed to be "N'at," a la the Pittsburgh colloquialism? (Not that I would ever want that on a cake, it just makes more sense to me ;))
Okay, I'm going out on a bit of a limb here. My theory for cake #1 is that Erin's birthday is either very close to or is on Christmas Day, so the cake is celebrating a double birthday, so to speak. When my kids were small, we always sang Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas Eve.
As always, this post is amazing! To think that an actual business establishment would intentionally put "Happy VD" on a food item for sale completely cracks me up!
@Meg: "you're gonorrhea-lly love this cake"... brilliant.
Yay Jesus... a bit odd to put on a cake, why not just use a cross instead the balloons if you're that religious? But, OK.
Poor Nat... hope her future cakes are better, or else she's not going to undersatnd the pleasure of "b-day" cakes!!
Tie Dye... Happy Day at least makes sense. Especially if they're mindset goes with the decor.
And you do say "Happy 29th" to people. With the teensy tiny addition, the cake works. Without it... I guess Beth was depressed, and is now happy? Or there were 28 previous Beths, and they weren't happy??
Poor Emil. Horrible cake, and it looks like they tried correcting it!
HB Day-- I'm with @Joel on this one: this CCC is for pencils. And they didn't finish drawing it.
VD cake... love it. That was laugh-out-loud funny! And I liked the itching and burning comments too :)
WV: I'm "schar" that there's even worse out there...
Well I find it mind boogling to see such see wreaks. Don't any of these stores or bakeries have bosses who over see whats leaving the back room? The VD cake is a hoot, but I have to say it is a strawberry cake so I would just have to eat it.
worse than that VD abbreviation is those randomly cut chunks of anemic strawberry. They're not in season in February - let it go.
WV: patent
Writing out "happy birthday" as a professional decorator is patently obvious.
If you aren't careful, one V.D. might lead to another...
I can't believe those are pros! They look like someone picked-up a to-go cake and did their own writing... which might have been a better choice!
That last one made me laugh out loud! Too funny!
oh.... my. still can't quite breathe.
How have you managed to not throw that cake out there before today???? that's been driving you crazy hasn't it?
IIRC, "Jesus" is a reasonably common name, especially among Spanish speaking people, and maybe others. Perhaps the "Jesus" cake is for someone with that name.
Alternately, it could be a Christmas cake, though why it would then have a "1" and "Erin" on it could be a mystery.
WV: dinester
Eating some of these cakes could really be a dinester
I'm not sure an Easter Day cake would be much better... at least for the guys...
But you forgot suggested "abbreuiations"
Like this:
http://content.pyzam.com/funnypics/3/pyzamnovanddec.jpg
Who says a google search for "Costco cakes" while at work produces useless results?
I seriously keep forgetting that these are "proffessionally" made cakes!
HB Day = Horrific Baking Day. YEAH, it's a real holiday.
just sayin'.
My dear Jen, I'm going to assume that that "Nat" cake actually says, "Happy B-Day N'at?," in a sad, sorry attempt at Pittsburghese. ;)
You made my day with that VD cake.
I think it's an unwritten rule that no one "enjoys" V.D., but hey, maybe it's the curable kind and they're celebrating?
"Jesus" is a very common name. Either they are having a duel cake or it has been a tough year for the birthday girl.
Ho-lee mo-lee. Wow.
At least the "Yay Jesus" cake was not combined with the VD cake...
Oh dear.... !!
I like Amanda's idea... "passive-aggressive break up cake" for the win!
Shouldn't the VD cake go with the Story of Amber?
FaunaBlues, speak for your self about strawberry not being in season during February. They ARE in season where I live in February. We start getting fresh strawberries around Christmas here.
I'm a huge fan on how the "29th" is all small and at an angle on the "Happy Beth" cake, like it was an after thought. "Oh no, we forgot the birthday when writing on the cake! What do we do?!" "How old are they turning? Just shove the age in there, it'll totally look intentional."
"Yay Jesus" had me in stitches. as did "Enjoy your V.D.", although I freely admit to being the one who makes all the sad, bitter VD puns when February rolls around
Until I got married my initials were V.D. Neither I nor my parents realized the horror until my boss pointed it out to me when I was 16. I was furious.
Wow...where's the WTF cake? LOL
I think the last cake was someone's clever way of letting their partner know that he/she should go get tested. Beats the heck out a boring phone call.
@Boob Nazi and John: Jesus is a common Spanish name, and maybe his Irish friend Erin wanted to wish him congrats. OR, maybe it was a cake for Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus.
It distracted me too, but for other reasons. (as in WTF does the inscription mean?)
wow, that last one is really funny! Imagine seeing that one in the bakery pick-up window-eeeeww!
I've never posted before, but I LOLed at the VD and had to comment! Ty