Friday, August 29, 2008

Dial-A-Wreck

Friday, August 29, 2008

Remember how we all loved the game "Telephone" in kindergarten? Well, add in a cake, and the fun never stops!

This order was for a "black high heel":

(It's a hill, people. Get it?)


Specifying punctuation is always tricky:


Although I suppose if Aunt flashed Mom that would liven up the party, and it's certainly preferable to Aunt slashing Mom.

(Ok, this one is tricky, I know: the order was for Aunt/Mom - a slash, in other words.)


Here we have a beautifully done blue horse. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a blue house.




If your message is "Philip...Woohoo!", and you actually have to say the words "dot dot dot", be prepared for just about anything.




And of course these never get old:


Although interestingly enough, I think that icing IS light pink. I guess the decorator was covering all her bases.

Which brings me to our new category: "Literal LOLs". These are some of my favorite kinds of Wrecks, so keep an eye out, Wreckporters!



Thanks to Danielle M., Stefanie D., Rachel S., Michael T., and Chandra.
Anonymous said...

These people drive???

Marmoset said...

these had me laughing so loud my boss had to check if I was okay.

Anonymous said...

These are hysterical! My favorite is the "That That That" cake.

The Isaacs said...

So fun to start my day with a giggle. Thanks!

Morgan said...

Okay, I'm stumped by "black high heel". I get black, and high, but heel? How do you get "mountain" out of "heel"?

Ruth said...

I love trying to figure out what the miscommunication one... Aunt/Mom took me forever to figure out!

Wonderful World of Weiners said...

The Philip THAT THAT THAT is hysterical!!

Hallie :)

Anonymous said...

On that last one, it looks like "Welcome Baby" was written by one person, and "in Pink" was written by another - or at least by the same person at different times. The styles are just slightly different. Which leads me to believe that they did it correctly, and then thought, "Oh, were we supposed to add 'in Pink,' or was that just an instruction? Better safe than sorry!"

Anonymous said...

Hilarious dot dot dot SO funny!

Your blog is hysterical - you people need your own youtube channel (cake wrecks with commentary) - you're like the carrot top of cake wrecks.

Unknown said...

BAHAHAHAH black high HEEL. You know that was here in the South..heel and hill don't sound alike anywhere else!

The Creeper said...

I don't get the first one. I know it's wrong, but I don't get it. Must be the blonde hairs on my head again.

Aunt flash mom... oh my!

Let's hope Joe isn't in the closet or that cake is really going to liven up the party a bit. Bwahahaha!

Meg said...

I have to wonder what the cake decorators are thinking. Is there someone in the Food Lion bakery going, "They want what? Okay. Aunt Flash Mom it is. Weirdos." Or is there just mental white noise?

Sabina E. said...

lol... why are people so dumb when it comes to proper punctuation for cake writing?!?! people's stupidity never ceases to amaze me...

now I'm gonna be craving all day at work for a piece of cake :(

Auntie Lolo said...

I love the new category! I just found your blog a few days ago and my friends and I are all hooked. So so funny.

Lois Hale

V. Nicharico said...

That "Aunt Flash" cake is perplexing...but the yellow on the last one just hurts your eyes this early in the morning!

Jessica said...

I love the "that that that" and the "big black HILL"....I'm glad that some people cant listen and take directions well...or at least write something down and clarify...

"um...Yes, I would like a cake with "phillip dot dot dot woohoo", "okay, that will be ready to pick up in 2 days"

cake "decorator"(I think I used those right:) to coworker-- "gee, thats funny they want the words "that that that" between phillip and woohoo...guess its an inside joke..oh well"

Kat Mortensen said...

I'm loving your site! I was puzzled by the one with the blue horse. The candles look rather like syringes, I think.
Poor punctuation and bad spelling are a particular pet peeve of mine, so I think I'm really going to be checking in often. (She says, while proof-reading her own comment, once again.)

Stop by my poetry blog, Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes and see if there's anything that interests you.

Kat

Riley said...

These caks are funny but it's the quick witted commentary that makes Cake Wrecks so much fun.

*Michelle said...

I bet that last one really had people laughing. Best time to screw it up - AFTER The hugely stressful painful even of childbearing. I bet that Mom didn't give a damn and just laughed. BESIDES the "in Pink" brilliance, The cake is actually kind of fun! No idea if it was on purpose but it has a yummy abstract feel.

Anonymous said...

Plurals never have apostrophes, even if you're making the plural of LOL.

Anonymous said...

Ohhhhh Cake Wrecks....You never disappoint!

i beati said...

Your blog is so unusual and a delight I have bookmarked you and am going to spot feature on my blog. May I link on? sandy

Clair said...

Thanks so much for that. I will start the weekend crying....

CakeEater said...

The "in Pink" is in a different handwriting (or at least done at a different time) than the "Welcome Baby" perhaps they were second guessing themselves for the moment?

The Courteous Chihuahua said...

Those are all so wrecktacular!! The Aunt Flash Mom decorator has apparently been to some of our family gatherings.

Anonymous said...

The Literal LOLs are definitely my favorites. I got flowers from a friend once that said, "Hope you feel better. Under that. Love (insert name)". Guess it must be hard to take directions over the phone.
I have to admit that it took me awhile to figure out the "big black hill" one though...

Lisa said...

Do these people have to go through any type of schooling??

I wish I had a picture of a cake from long ago which was supposed to read "happy birthday to you Candace" but the decorator put "Happy birthday too, You Can Dance" Good times...

Risha said...

I had to read the comments in order to figure out the heel/hill mistake. I was staring at the picture for an embarrassingly long time trying to connect "heel" to "mountain"!

Anonymous said...

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that there are SO MANY decorators out there that don't think twice about what they're writing. Makes for great laughs! The black high heel is hysterical!!

Unknown said...

Where am I able to get a horse cake? I mean house?

I especially like the swirly hill/cliff with flowers on that one too ;)

MaryO said...

OMG! ROTFLMAO! Heck, I thought it said, "Aunt FLESH".. but that's just me, I guess. BEYOND HILARIOUS! This blog makes my day! Black HEEEIILLL.. Too much! And.... that..that..that.. OMG, I must stop laughing!! This site is addictive!

Unknown said...

heel=hill guys, not mountains!

i love the literal mistakes the best!

Geo said...

I think this is one of my all-time favorite posts.

Maryogim said...

just think what Phillip's cake would have looked like if the person ordering said:
Phillip, ellipsis, whoo-hoo
funny stuff

Faith said...

Ok, if nothing else, I have to say that reading your blog has DEFINITELY taught me how important clear and defined communication with any cake decorator is in the future.

Oh, and of course all the laughs are appreciated as well. ;)

Anonymous said...

Agreed w/Grammar Nazi -- take the apostrophe out of the "Literal LOLs" tag and we'll stop cringing. Unless that's the point. ;)

"Black high hill" XD And of course the airbrush went wild over the edge of the "hill"

The baby cake looks great, aside from being, you know. Overly literal. :D

colourtheworld said...

excuse,is't made by your hand?
very nice~!

Juliet said...

So the Aunt flash Mom cake should have read:
Aunt-Mom ??? I says, "Pardon?"

I guess I am not familiar with the 'flash' punctuation but I am familiar with things like commas, periods, colons, and such.

Bourbon Beauty said...

These are so so so funny. You know God had a sense of humor when he created some of these people. lol.

Unknown said...

lol. that's hilarious

Clementine said...

I love the "black high hill" one the most. I can hear that Southern accent all the way up here in Massachusetts!

Anonymous said...

haha wow! those are really entertaining!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Angela's comment. You know the person who called in on Cake #1 must have had a southern accent. Because "Black High Heel" in a southern accent sounds just like "Black High Hill."

Rebecca Jo said...

I bused out laughing on these - these are fantatically funny!

Karen J. Weyant said...

Well, I have to admit -- there's a part of me that loves the blue horse.

Karen

Mellie said...

Oh wow!! Do I laugh or cry!! These are GREAT!

Anonymous said...

Inquiring minds want to know - Were Phillip's pink and yellow girlie roses the choice of the "decorator" or whomever ordered the cake?

fuzzandfuzzlet said...

Too funny.

Anonymous said...

Black high heel....black high hill....

Anonymous said...

These are awesome! Black High Hill..... Aunt Flash Mom... I check in daily for my daily dose of laughter!

jen bryner said...

that that that...BWUHAHAHAHAHA!!!! that's the best thing i've heard all week! i'm definitely spreading that one around ;)

Unknown said...

Grammar Nazi needs to find another job; perhaps cake decorating...? :)

Use the apostrophe to indicate the possessive case (except for personal pronouns), to mark omissions, and to form certain plurals.

If the ending [of the word] (either singular or plural) is not an s or z sound, add the apostrophe and s. (ex. man's hat, boy's shoes [singular] or men's hats, women's dresses [plural])

If the plural ends in an s or z sound, add only the apostrophe. (ex. ladies' hats, boys' shoes)

A tip o' the hat to the 6th Edition of Harbrace College Handbook.

Darth Rob said...

Funny stuff! I read this blog regularly. Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

blog by tsunami that is

Anonymous said...

Who writes "Aunt/Mom" on a cake? Wouldn't you think it would be something like, "Mom/Aunt Judy" or "Mom/Auntie Judy" or even "Judy" and let her role in the family go unspoken?

This is why we make our cakes in my family. No one to blame but ourselves!

Ronnica said...

Living in North Carolina, I got a big laugh out of the hill/heel thing. My Southern friends pronounce them both the same.

Oh and the blue horse? I can't imagine the look on Joe's face when he saw that! I just picture him as a man in his 50s who finally built his dream home (in blue)...and now he has a pony on his birthday cake!

ExploreColorado said...

What a fun site. It must be a blast seeing all these cake bloopers.

Ray said...

Absolutey LOVE this blog...I am a new blogger and came across it. As an avid cake decorator myself, I can appreciate the horror.

Thanks for the laughs!

Aaron T. said...

At least the "black high hill" one makes a little sense, since the expression "over the hill" and the color black are often jokingly used to celebrate people's 40th (and sometimes 30th) birthdays.

Stephanie said...

Is it wrong that I sort of want a wreck now?

Anonymous said...

Grammar Nazi:
You're right, of course. (Wow. I wouldn't have noticed, as I don't read the tags.) How the tagger managed to get LOLs right in the post but not the tags... XD

Kylie said...

Are they nuclear missile sin the background of that horse cake?

Scary.

Crazedmerlie said...

Your site is absolutely wonderful!!! I am ridiculously impressed by it!!! It's funny and super cool!!! The expression "super cool" suggests that i think it is really.....lol.....

Anonymous said...

wow... i don't even know how these could happen!

Jen said...

Hehehe - if you ever want to learn everything there is to know about grammar the hard way, start a blog criticizing grammar errors.

My hubby went in and corrected the LOLs error in the post this morning, which is why it was correct there but still incorrect in the tags. I just fixed the tag, too, though. Thanks for the correction, grammar nazi, and for not calling me any names. (No joke!)

Katie said...

Aunt/Mom? Are we going to a West Virginia birthday party?

Katie Alender said...

LMAO @ Lisa: "happy birthday to you Candace" but the decorator put "Happy birthday too, You Can Dance"

What a delightful affirmation.

Oh, and I'm another who thought the candles on the horse cake were some sort of missile or hypodermic needle flying toward the horse.

The Blogger Formerly Known as Boblawblogger said...

does anyone think that "baby in pink" is the child of "lady in red"?

OpaqueSkies said...

I have had so much hilarious fun with your blog, and have directed many to you. SO funny. I don't know where you get your cake pics, or if you have a Facebook, but I did find a Facebook group where people post photos that would be great fodder for your blog. "Ace of Cakes--Let's Give Duff a Run for His Money." There are over 1,000 pics posted.

Anonymous said...

Trust me, after ordering a cake for a baby shower from one of the most awesome Tres Leches-making restaurants in town. Over the phone, I asked for them to spell "Welcome Baby Jean Karlo!". I spelled it out so that they didn't think it was "Giancarlo", etc... They got OFFENDED when I asked them to read it back and also offered to fax it over JUST TO BE SURE! They turned down the fax said they "had it!" and hung up! The day of the event, I go to pick it up and sure enough - I opened the lid and saw "Welcome Baby Johncarlo!"?!?!?! I was FIT to be tied and waited impatiently for them to take it back and fix it. Sometimes, it's just going to happen, which is a good thing in the way that it will keep us coming back happily to CakeWrecks!!!
As a hobbyist cake artist (for now) and being raised by a then-Secretary...these "literals" send me over the edge. :) I know from the experience above let alone "Welcome Baby in Pink" and the incomparable "that that that" to get a sign-off on the written bits and design concept BEFORE puting cornet of icing to cake! :)
Peace out!
Wendy

Anonymous said...

My sides hurt.

bidarlah said...

haha...

in pink!!!

Anonymous said...

...how can people be this dumb??

Anonymous said...

Kind of off topic here, but I've thought this with so many posts (that, that, that) can we just talk about penmanship for a moment?

And these people are professional decorators?

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does the "in pink" part almost look like someone added from a program such as photoshop or something? I mean, it's kinda blurry looking. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who is questioning the genetic integrity of the family responsible for that second cake? I mean, everyone I know would understand that "Happy Birthday Mom" means the aunt of someone else. "It's from all of us" would cover the explanation.

So it leads me to imagine that this is one of those situations where the familial relations are a bit tough to explain, and that "Aunt/Mom" is the only accurate way to describe the branches of the family tree that separate the cake buyer from the cake receiver.

Wait. I know! That cake was ordered in the same part of the country that allowed for the first cake's mistake to happen!

(I'll sit here and wait for the tomatoes to start flying toward me.)

Anonymous said...

I love the literal ones too. It's one thing to make fugly and/or disturbing and/or inappropriate cakes, but mistakes like that require a special kind of stupidity. Keep 'em coming! :D

Nancy Frye said...

Hill-heel...I know enough folks from the SE corner of the US that I saw/heard what happened instantly.

The "ellipsis" boo-boo, wow, did somebody have a bit of an accent? Hungarian? Greek? When "dot" sounds like "that", there's a serious foreign or regional accent in play. However...the decorator was obviously a shining product of our public school system. Literally (ha). Critical thinking, anyone?

I've always decorated my own cakes, so I've never had the agony of dealing a faux pas like any of these. My mom decorated all the cakes when I was a kid. She taught me how to do lettering, use the different tips, etc. Wow, these people are paid for this stuff?! I feel as though I've missed out on a broad cultural experience.

French Vanilla said...

way too funny.

Anonymous said...

So when I order a cake, make sure to ask for it this way, "Use pink frosting to write 'It's a girl.'"

Soldier85 said...

Yes I was waiting for someone to do this! very funny thank you :)

heartafire said...

Morgan, You'd have to live in the south and hear someone pronounce the word "HILL" to get it.

If you told the supermarket cake lady "add a pitcher of a black high heel" and she thought you were sportin' a Southern accent, why, she'd shore as snuff setchoo right up with a black high hill .

Anonymous said...

re: Aunt/Mom. I keep having flashbacks to the movie Chinatown...
"She's my Sister - I'm her Mother!!"
only now it's "She's my Mother! She's my Aunt!" keep up the great work! Stephanie

heartafire said...

And Lynn, you are wrong in correcting Grammar Nazi as you did. The ONLY time that the apostrophe is used in posessives is if they are PLURAL posessives. So her correction was correct. Apostrophes are not used for plurals, unless they are making an ALREADY PLURAL word possessive.
This is an important disctinction.
Signed, Grammar Nazi's Secret Admirer

heartafire said...

OOOOoooopsy....
Just went back and read Lynn's ENTIRE comment. And (oooooooooh I hate admitting I'm wrong) but of course, your examples are right, and you are right.

It's just that people SO OFTEN misuse apostrophes ("its" and" it's," anyone?) that there are those of us who love to go around correting....and believe me, it could be a full time job.

Sorry for my snarky correction to you.

(But I'm still Grammar Nazi's admirer)

heartafire said...

OK, so everyone is commenting on the missiles heading right for Blue Horse, but what about the "Welcome Baby in pink" who is being feted with a couple of hatchets?

Anonymous said...

Hi, excellent blog, congratulations. Its blog will be in our list in the Blog Day, day 31/08. been thankful. www.atattoo.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I got the high heel vs. high hill right away - it is a regional accent here!

Pademelon said...

Seriously, this blog is the absolute best. I used to be a cake decorator and some of the things people order!! It always drove me crazy with other cake decorators too though because they wouldn't call the person who ordered it if it didn't make sense! Even with Costco and the like, you still tend to pay a decent amount for a custom cake. I've never had a customer complain that I called to clarify whether they want a "black high hill" or a "black high heel" common sense people!

We also had a lot of blank cakes, which were frosted but had no inscription, so people could come and grab one on the fly. We had a bunch of girls working there who couldn't spell and were poor cake decorators to begin with (it was an ice cream shop to be fair) and OH some of the things they let walk out the door.

Everytime one of the girls decided she wanted our boss to send her to cake decorating class, she'd start decorating random cakes without instruction (which never worked, the boss just got frustrated that we'd have to slavage all these cakes, but they never figured that part out). Every year we'd have to grab all of the spontaneous Graduation cakes that snuck into the cake display fridge because either Congratulations or Graduate/Graduation would be spelled wrong in the same way on EVERY cake. Our boss even left a dictionary next to the cake decorating manual!
_Steph

Anonymous said...

These are some of the best, ever (that, that, that)

Varsha said...

91st comment. Woo-Hoo.
Found your blog to be AMAZINGLY LOL
Pop over to my blog anytime!
I loved the Baby in Pink one :)

saiful Izwan a.k.a m@ntra said...

u made me laugh.Thanx

Jeannie McLoed said...

Love this site, absolutely love it. It's so reassuring to know that I'm not the only one out there who realizes that the English language has been butchered to death in the past couple of decades! While the visuals are great (mohawk babies, etc), the literal goofs are just perfect. You have to wonder what is (or isn't, apparently) going through the minds of these "professionals" as they're crafting these masterpieces!

Dea said...

Oh man, funny stuff - I told the local bakery owner about your site - he was laughing so hard at my descriptions!!! I think that there are some seriously either overworked, overtired, or underambitious cake docrators out there...LOL!

Marshall Smith said...

To Grammar Nazi et al.,

There is a certain school of thought that using apostrophes when pluralizing an acronym (e.g., LOL) is proper. In particular, the New York Times considers this the correct method. While it is now generally regarded as incorrect (except when the acronym contains internal punctuation or is a single letter), many of us were still taught to do it that way.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=499296

yupitsme said...

Hi! I luv this blog! It's ace! I think if i attempted a cake mine would look like one of these!! lol.
love it!
x

industrialpoppy said...

These killed me.
Still laughing.

Anonymous said...

I love this blog, it definitely provides comic relief to my day! My favorite was black high heel. I am still laughing about that one!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but "Philip . . . Woo-hoo!" is a ridiculous thing to put on a cake in the first place, and I'd say they deserve what they got.

Anonymous said...

I love this post! It definitely just brightened up my sucky night...Are these true stories? That's pretty funny

Anonymous said...

Is it bad that on the first glance I read the "Aunt/Mom" one as "C**t Flash Mom"? I was like, zomg what!? Someone put that on a cake and gave it to their mom? Is "mom" a porn star or something?

Then I read the caption and giggled at my knee-jerk reaction.

Sara said...

Love this post...I once got a Cake that read "Happy Birthday Under Neat Sara." It was supposed to be:

Happy Birthday
Sara

Go figure!

Anonymous said...

One more correction, Grammar Nazi:

The AP Stylebook calls for using an apostrophe to pluralize single letters, as in "She got all A's."

But no apostrophe is needed when pluralizing groups of letters, as in "the ABCs."

So there!

Great site, by the way!

Anonymous said...

I work for an in store bakery and have seen -so- many weird things that nothing shocks me anymore. That having been said whenever I take an order I make -extra- sure I understand it before I write it down, just to be completely clear with the person ordering what they want and how they want the cake inscribed etc. Considering how parents are naming their kids these days, with the odd spellings of the names that were spelled (I thought) normally 10-20 yrs ago, it just makes sense to be absolutely sure before going ahead to write on a cake or do some sort of decoration that seems a little out of what I consider ordinary.

But some of these (to me) make sense, and I can see how they would have been misconfused and done.

Eve said...

LOVE THIS BLOG!!! I think the "in Pink" part of the Welcome Baby cake was photoshopped. It looks weird.

Anonymous said...

ok... so Aunt/Mom?

does that mean Dad married his sister? must have been an offspring from that pairing who decorated it...

or would it be Dad/Brother married his sister?????

in short... EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Anonymous said...

Holy crap!You know those pictures of the vases that also look like a women's faces? So I looked at the black heel cake and did not see a hill at first. I saw 2 white legs and a crotch!

LaurenAct513 said...

I think the blue horse one was supposed to be blue house as in "Bear in the Blue House" and was for a young child. The candles are crayons (I have used them for my kids).

I love the Candace, "Can Dance" story. I wish you had a picture of it to post.

LaurenAct513 said...

Okay, here is my take on the whole Aunt/Mom thing. I am going with the theory that Mom had a baby very young (say 14 or so) and gave it to her older sister to raise. The child grew up thinking that she was her aunt. When the child grew older, she was told the truth, that her "aunt" was really her mom and her "mom" was really her aunt. Thus Aunt/Mom covers both the names she has know the woman by.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

coeurdechoeur said...

I find the 'high heel' especially hilarious. Being from Texas, I can definitely see how that wreck came into being.

Anonymous said...

Lauren "Okay, here is my take on the whole Aunt/Mom thing. I am going with the theory that Mom had a baby very young (say 14 or so) and gave it to her older sister to raise. The child grew up thinking that she was her aunt. When the child grew older, she was told the truth, that her "aunt" was really her mom and her "mom" was really her aunt. Thus Aunt/Mom covers both the names she has know the woman by.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it."

Though that is an interesting theory...I would lean more on the fact that the mother and the aunt are twins so hence a shared birthday.... but yours is more entertaining.

Anonymous said...

is it just me, or do the things above the horse's tail look like syringes without the needles?

Anonymous said...

I was laughing so hard that that that tears are still running down my face!

Anonymous said...

Now now...there's no need to make mountains out of mole-heels!

Courtney B

Anonymous said...

This website has made my night. I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard!!!

Anonymous said...

'Philip that that that WOO-HOO!!'

... all i can say is it could have been worse. For instance:

Philip three periods WOO-HOO!!

Which makes for a vast array of amusing/ disturbing mental imagery.

Anonymous said...

I like the horse one but the candles look like crayon darts about to stab the it.

Anonymous said...

For all you non-Southerners - the "heel" instead of "hill"could have been a reflection of a southern accent - that's my guess. Our drawl could easily be misunderstood.

Just got into your site today - LOVE IT!

Southern Girl
Tracy

GirlWhoSangTheBlues said...

Oh wow... I've been perusing the site for hours... The first one to make me really laugh out loud was the "Phillip... woohoo" one. It sounds like some kind of grade-school sexual innuendo. :)

Mrs. Porter said...

And to think, they walk among us...

Anonymous said...

I am in class and I LOLed at that "that that that woo hoo!!!" cake. People were looking at me, but it was worth it. hahahah

Scarlett Robyn said...

The fourth one is sooooooo funny- just try reading it out to yourself!!!

Cupcakes Lady said...

Some people just try to hard...dont you agree? Thanks goodness they do...or it wouldnt be funny! lol xx

Anonymous said...

So three things I have learned from this blog are:

1) If you are the client, don't order over the phone, order in person. Assume that the person behind the counter is a moron and just write out exactly what you want, and provide a picture if possible. (Just be sure you wrote it out correctly or you will have no one to blame but yourself!)

2) If you are the employee, write out what you think you heard and SHOW it to the customer. Also, use context. If I actually wanted a "black high hill", I would have asked for a black mountain, or a tall, black hill. If you're that worried that the customer will think you're dumb for calling them and asking, just wait to see what their reaction will be when you present them with the cake.

3)Everyone needs to improve their verbal communication and listening skills...and read more books so that a) decorators will stop being so literal, and b) customers will explain what they want correctly.

That is all.