My Birthday Cake Can Kick Your Birthday Cake’s &%@#

“Okay…let’s cut some cake!” ~Wikus van de Merwe, District 9

I don't know who Jade is...but I want her cake.

I have no idea why birthdays, or birthday cakes, are on my mind. It’s not my birthday and it won’t be for months. I think it had to do with a co-worker looking for ideas for her daughter. She was going more for something princess-y or perhaps the Little Mermaid. I suggested The A-Team.

“Why not?” I said. “It would get her into a new fandom.” She quickly nixed the idea. Her daughter, after all, is only four. I don’t know if she could have handled the sheer awesomeness of an A-Team cake. I also thought of a Chuck Norris cake (Chuck Norris doesn’t jump out of a cake; cakes jump out of Chuck Norris) but didn’t say anything.

There was a cute anecdote I had read about young Sharlto Copley (the new Murdock) receiving a B.A. Baracus birthday cake…in apartheid South Africa. If that’s not purely awesome, I don’t know what is.

Don't puke on it!

Most kids get the usual cakes for their birthdays: pink princesses or flowers for girls, perhaps Star Wars or dinosaurs for boys. It’s all very gender-specific. (Go into any bakery if you don’t believe me.) From an early age, I was bound and determined to shatter gender stereotypes. I liked some weird stuff back in the day. Thankfully my mom was up to the challenge, and also a surprisingly resourceful birthday cake maker.

I think she managed to take pictures of most of her marvelous creations. Some of them might even be Polaroids. My second birthday was one of the greatest: Flying Ace Snoopy sitting on top of his Sopwith Camel. That’s the kind of thing you want to admire more than eat. Another year it was Oscar the Grouch with a glorious coating of green icing Muppet fur. You know how some toddlers throw their cake all over the place? I was too much in awe to do that.

As I grew, my tastes changed. Every year I had a new obsession. At five, it might have been The Smurfs. By the time I was seven, Mom had made me an NFL Electric Football cake and used the players as cake toppers. I had to lick all the icing off their feet before the Big Game. Obi-wan Kenobi, Asterix and Obelix, Chip and Dale, Robin Hood all got their day atop my cake before I devoured their flour-and-sugar likenesses.

Now that I’ve grown up, I realize Mom really did love me, and she never tried to force me into a pre-conceived stereotype. It was all right that her little girl was more likely to become an archaeologist or soldier or fortune instead of a ballerina or actress. (I don’t think Mom ever actually made a little cannon or pistol out of fondant. Remember, I wasn’t allowed to watch The A-Team as a child because Mom and Dad thought it was “too violent.” They did, however, let me experiment with M-80s out in the backyard. Go figure.)

Adults don’t really get to have as much fun as kids do when it comes to birthday cakes. Though I will say that I got an A-Team van cake last year (sadly, only in 2-D). The one cake I can really look forward to, if and when it ever happens, will be my wedding cake. No white and perfectly placed flowers for me. Nope. If I ever do get there, chances are it’s gonna have barbed wire icing, a gun turret, and strategically placed A-Team action figures. And I might just hire Mr. T to jump out of it and wish me Mazel Tov.

A girl can dream.

H.M.'s wedding day didn't go as expected.

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~ by Howlin' Mad Heather on January 25, 2011.