Ties That Blind
June 19, 2012 Father's Day has come and gone once again, but it left its legacy behind in our nation's bakeries:
;)
Specifically, a legacy of not knowing what the heck a necktie looks like.
;)
I prefer to think of this as the Dark Crystal being picked up by The Claw.
Remember that old schoolyard insult, "Is that your face, or did your neck throw up?"
I'd like to amend that to "...or did your necktie throw up?"
;)
Ewww. It's even filling the shirt pocket. [shudder]
At first I was all excited that this next baker got it right, but then...
;)
Hey, waaaaait a minute...
Eventually the Corporate Cheeses realized the humble necktie was vastly beyond most bakers' skill set, so they helpfully shipped out a bunch of plastic ones bakers could just stick on a shirt cake.
This solved the problem completely.
And by "completely," I mean, "how ELSE would we know what this cake is supposed to be?"
;)
Seriously. Take away the plastic tie and you've got Envelope Man with Smurf measles. But put the plastic tie ON and you've got...um...
Daddy? Is that you?
Call me old-fashioned*, but I still like the old way better; no plastic, no cheating, just an underpaid yahoo, his piping bag, and a pearl necklace/tie combo for the ages:
;)
(I'm guessing they added the tie after Mother's Day.)
Thanks to Anony M., Camille L., Jessica J., Heather M., Yolan, & Lelia C. for reminding me that bow ties are way cooler.
*'Cuz I'm all about muddling dissolved sugar with bitters and adding whiskey with a twist of citrus rind. Aww yeeeah.
Reader Comments (52)
Am I the only one who doesnt see a problem with the blue tie on the round cake? Apart from the fact its not on a shirt-shaped cake?
What am I missing on the "Hey, waaaaait a minute" cake?????
Second cake/ cookie has Father's Day! Happy 2011, on it also.
Sung to “Lucy in the Sky, with Diamonds” (This one was a challenge…)
Picture yourself seeing cakes, trying to figure
Why jellyfish dance between the red lines
Then you realize, though it happens quite slowly
“I think they’re supposed to be ties.”
Cookies with squiggles where lines intersect
Causing an ache in your head
Look for the baker so you can ask, “Why?”
But she’s gone
You say it’s a tie, well that depends
Loosely, it’s a tie, I comprehend
Not a cake that I’d buy for my friends, oh
Next one is really quite bright, with a fountain
Of vomit that fills up the pocket, oh, why?
Followed by one that seems close, ‘til you realize
It’s a tracheotomy tie
Smurfpox and flotsam appear on some more
Please just take those cakes away
Dad was transgendered until yesterday
Now he’s Mom
Loosely, it’s a tie with pearl strands
You say it’s a tie, well that depends
Not a cake that I’d buy for my friends, oh
Loosely, it’s a tie, I comprehend
Loosely, it’s a tie, I comprehend
Loosely, it’s a tie, I comprehend, ohhhhhh
Ties without a neck
Collars overflowing - ick
All make for great wrecks!
@Sharyn - another classic!
*looks at the blue tie cake*
*looks more*
*keeps looking*
...All I can think is that the shirt collar looks like angry eyes, and perhaps the tie is a big honkin' pustulating nose?
Or maybe I just wanted to say pustulating. :)
@Carlz and @Tony -- the knot is usually below the collar
My best guess for the "Wait a minute" tie is the fact that the knot is in the center of the neck hole, rather than at the opening of the collar. But that's really just a guess, really. Anyone see any more significant issues?
Bowties are way cooler. As are Stetsons and fezzes.
I thought the first one was a flux capacitor.
For Carlz and Tony
Isn't the tie supposed to start under the collar? The triangle part is where the chin should be...
It took me a minute to see what was wrong on the "waaait a minute" cake... But then I saw it! The knot of the tie is in the middle of the collar opening, right where a neck would go!
OMG Sharyn... where the LIKE button?! I LMFAO at that one..
Is there a good reason the packaging on that last one is stabbing into the cake? Oh! Because it's a CCC!
To respond to - What am I missing on the "Hey, waaaaait a minute" cake?????
Aside from the fact the knot is lodged in dad's uvula instead of under the shirt collar? - absolutely nothing - took me a minute too . . . .
For Carlz & Tony - There's nothing wrong with that cake if the father is headless. (Knot placement)
These are knot the ties that bind.
These are knot the ties we're looking for.
Honestly, who actually paisley for this mess...and who's Ley?
They should have gone with the bow tie...I hear they're cool.
Sharyn hahahhaa. How do those people have jobs??? SERIOUSLY how did they get a job??
Sharyn - you "tied" it all together beautifully!
That first one looks more like a bishop's pallium than a tie. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallium)
Jules, that's exactly what I was thinking. It's like a Cake Wrecks / Bad Vestments crossover entry.
Looks like these wreckerators tied one on before they piped on the ties, if you know what I mean.
*headdesk* *palmforehead*
*sigh* Even the one that was done nicely had issues. Seriously? The knot in the mouth? I feel like screaming through the house -- "Knot the mouth, Knot the mouth!!" of course, since it's a day for "Not the mama".
@ Sharyn: a tracheotomy tie! : )
Speaking of the "Hey, waaaaait a minute..." Cake - I was fooled at first, too. I was trying to see the words behind all that glare, figuring that must be where it all went wrong. Then I looked back at the tie and it hit me. Not the tie, the realization.
Envelope Man with Smurf Measles, hee! WITH the tie, though, he reminds me of Fred Flinstone.
OH! MY! I literally JUST realized what the vomit is SUPPOSED to be. That's the collar, isn't it? And, what? A pocket protector? I think a little piece of my heart just wretched, shriveled and died.
Well, since nobody else has answered your request:
you're old-fashioned.
For myself, I'll take Manhattan. After these cakes, I want to tie one on.
#1 Groovy.
#2 I'd just like to point out that the problem here is the knot placement. Oh, and the whole 'word sequence' thing. It's either 'Father's Happy Day! 2011' which makes me wonder what kind of year Dad had (and what's in the cookie), or else the giver wanted to wait until the year was almost half over before wishing Dad a Happy 2011. You know, see how things go, kinda hedge your bets. Wouldn't want to be wrong about a thing like that.
#3 It's a little-known fiction that dress shirts have a pocket because of this exact situation. Say you forgot to put the starch in ("what's that?") and your collar is just kind of flopping around, with WAY more of it on the left than on the right. It used to be that a man's only recourse was to walk around, looking like a doofus. But thanks to the pocket, there's an unobtrusive place to store that excess collar. Western shirts have pockets on both sides to eliminate the plague of 'Wretched Right Excess Collar Syndrome' or WRECS, as it is known.
#4 Yes, another sad example of Incorrectly loCated Knot, or ICK, as it is known (as if no one else tortures acronyms to make words).
#5 'Envelope Man with Smurf Measles' should totally be a 'thing'. If it were, I could even excuse the cupcakes.
#6 Speaking of which, CCCs (patooie!) are known for being paved with frosting, but this...? The cover is making little craters in it. It's sort of like a purple Moonscape or a golf course designed by someone with a real flair for symmetry. Speaking of 'flair'... Uh, Dad? Could we talk?
Yes, Craig - I was worried that no one else commented on the packaging for that last "cake". I'm glad you did!!
Ummm, cake # 3, all I can see is a uterus...
I looked at the first cake and totally thought "Western shirt". Look! There's even a sheriff's badge!
The third cake? Well, I'm old enough that I remember those unbelievably WIDE collars that were prevalent in the mid-70s but there's wide and then there's "hide the children from the huge, living collar" wide. The tie on that one also looks more like Freddy's ascot from Scooby Doo.
Cake # 3 was the most disturbing one by far. I did not see a tie with a shirt pocket to the right or even the vomit. I saw white extremely inflamed fallopian tubes (the "collar") with a lumpy orange uterus (the "tie") directly below it. The "shirt pocket" kind of looks like either a police badge/possible award for the tube or a completely misplaced birth control device that migrated to the wrong area.
I'm not willing to speculate on what those so-called "buttons" might be !!
The "waaaaiiitt a minute cake" rather looks like a cherry bomb was dropped in a toilet if looked at upside down.
More like "Ties that Bind and Gag". (Wasn't that an Erma Bombeck book?)
A pearl necklace/tie combo would actually be kinda awesome if done right.
Blue tie on round cake - look at where the tie starts ;-)
On the 4th cake I'd like to imagine that the necktie is playing jump rope... anyone else?
Also thank you for reminding me that I want to buy a bowtie, cuz bowties are cool...
I'm so sorry, but you all have misunderstood cake #3 completely. It's not a tie at all. It's a female genie with exceptional upper arm development wearing a strapless gown, coming out of the ball/lamp at the bottom.
Isn't that what every dad wants?
blue tie on round cake- yes the knot is in the middle of the neck, BUT the buttons on the collar look like evil eyes! which kind of makes sense since if someone was to really get choked by the evil tie- now we know "who did it"
...smurf measles... BWA Ha ha ha hahahahahaaaa!
And Sharyn - awesomest, as usual!
:)
I love how they don't even give a crap that the 12 pack container is stabbing right down into the icing on the last one. The decorator at my store is so anal retentive that as much as I try to get her to like this site, I think she looks at it like a site about murder and trainwrecks... because of things like this.
That last cake - did they ice it with a steak knife?? or use a grout trowel?
"Hey, don't we have some leftover cement? Lets just slap it on these cupcakes!"
Grooves in the icing - who thought that was a good idea?
The first cake looks like a plastic model IUD Ive seen in my GYN office. Obviously not to scale.....
What the fork is wrong with these "decorators".
just an underpaid yahoo
I read this as "underpaid Yoohoo" and imagined a sad little drink bottle, slaving away on cakes.
Probably because I have a Yoohoo in the fridge.
I should put it out of its misery, really... Mmmm, Yoohoo.
Envelope Man either buttons his collar up to his nose or he's headless and that's his stump (headless monk, maybe? should've stuck with a fez)
@Di: Loving the "Dinosaurs" reference!
fish fingers and custard!
"Envelope man with Smurf measles." ROTFL!
And if they're really measles from a Smurf, would they be Smeasles? Smusles? Or jest a hot mess?
Did anyone else think # 3 looks like a really muscular woman in a red dress, holding her handbag upside down? Or was that just me?
Is it a new tradition to buy dad a tie that strangles him for Father's Day or is it just the cake? Lol poor dad. At least he got some cake out of it even if his kids give him killer neckties. Must be the reason my dad never wears them. Gotta love wreckerators at least they give us all a great chuckle and then a reason to cower in fear.
I was also happy about the "Hey, wait a minute" and then I looked at it like a puzzle until I burst into a giggle since the enormous knot is in the middle of the poor guy's throat. @ "Anyone see anything more significant?" that is significant, don't you think. Thanks for the giggles tonight.
Sam, I like the jump rope idea. It makes the eyes a little less evil. The tie must be jumping with two ropes to make it a challenge.
1- Priests are fathers, too. Especially Sheriff Priests.
2- The word placement is just...so...awkward. Perhaps it is a Father's Day cake from Happy? And 2011 was put on it for kicks? I'm not sure how the crystal necklace is related, though. Unless Dad is rather "fabulous."
3- I keep seeing a ghost woman (no feet) in a strapless dress with a shield on her arm. Not sure what this is doing in a post about ties or why Happy Father's Day is written on it.
4- Jump rope!
5- The color of the frosting suggests to me that this father entered a wet t-shirt contest wearing a thin white shirt with blue dots on it.
6- Here we have another fabulous dad. I'm glad bakeries are starting to celebrate a wide variety of family types. The CCC part is just unfortunate, though. Even packaging wants to stab a CCC.