Thursday, February 26, 2009

When Common Sense Isn't

Thursday, February 26, 2009

You're right, Benoit; I'm guessing they didn't get that tip, either.

Nice to see that they understood that there was something important about the 12 bit, though. Do you suppose the wreckerator was putting that extra layer of icing on and wondering what the big deal was about the number 12, anyway?



Thank goodness that all fit, Diane V.; I don't know WHAT the decorator could have done to shorten the inscription. Do you?


(And fyi: Freymoto is a clever smash-up of the happy couple's last names. Nifty idea, no?)
Unknown said...

Wow- and that chocolate cake could havebeen so pretty. LOL

Anonymous said...

that was all things amazing. I <3 it. hahaha

Alisa Knits! said...

Sometimes I feel really bad for the wreckerators, who are very clearly not native speakers of English for the most part.

And then I want to smack the employer for hiring someone who is so very obviously ill-suited to their job.

thennelly said...

These are my favorite types of wrecks! Thanks!!!

Kara said...

Part of me thinks that if I got a cake like this I would be way too amused to complain.

Viewtiful_Justin said...

Wow. I am stunned. Can people seriously look at the order and think that anyone in their right mind would want THAT on a cake?

I guess you stop judging what people want with a cake when a 12 year old girl has a playboy cake.

*shakes head*

TheDitzyQueen said...

What a cute cake it is!

the purple curly-q's... the smooth chocolate icing...

oh! those directions i gave to the baker?

What a great conversation piece! It's perfect!

hahah. xD

Anonymous said...

It can't be!

Plugging ears, squinching eyes closed and shaking head. And singing lalalala.

Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)

Cheryl said...

Ha! Hey, my last name is a mashup of my husband's and my last names, too!

Doublebanker said...

What is the big deal with 12...I don't remember anything too exciting!

Don't forget to show cakewrecks some click appreciation like I have for their awesome content!!

Check out my daily gif blog when ya have a chance.

DB

Reformed Supermom said...

OMG....Big tip if it's there before 12?

Um, this wouldn't be a bar mitzvah cake, would it?

Tracy O said...

Oh, dear lord, the non-English speaking wreckerator strikes again (trying to come up with a reasonable excuse for this) - at least the writing is nice? These mistakes had me "decorating" my computer screen with diet coke... Thanks, Jen, I needed that today!!! :)
WV: inollin - If we use a "small" tip, we can get inollin more words.

Tracy O

Mrs. Cupcake said...

How can it be possible that someone who can pipe so beautifully can be so stupid????

Miranda said...

No words. All I can do is shake my head and wonder how dumb do you have to be?

Milu said...

I live for the literal lols.

Cottagecheap said...

Even without the stupid inscription,do you think Jason would love that lone 'pretty' flower? WTH?

Anonymous said...

Aw, the first one would have been beautiful without the last part.

Anonymous said...

What scares me is that these wreckorators are allowed to vote, drive, and reproduce.

Trevor said...

that one drop flower on Jayson's cake looks so lonely! What's up with that? It's kind of like someone knew how to make a nice ganache, but was in the middle of taking Wilton I.

Anonymous said...

I'm just surprised they didn't USE a big tip...

WF- mocing 1) You're mocing me...
2) (alternate pronunciation) what do cows put on their cake? Mocing

Unknown said...

(raising eyebrow in suspicion)
If WHAT is there before 12?? LOL

The second one had me laughing so hard I had to look at them both again.
~Amy B.

Tabitha (From Single to Married) said...

absolutely amazing. And not in a good way.

The Courteous Chihuahua said...

Dang it! My laughter sent me into yet ANOTHER coughing fit!! hack, hack, wheeze...but so worth it.

Anonymous said...

These are hands-down my favorite wrecks! Thanks for the morning laughs!

Ace said...

Ha! And I was upset when I picked up a cake before that said "Happy 3th Birthday"!

You make me laugh every time!

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking the 'big tip' is in regards to the icing tip that was supposed to be at the bakery before 12.

Heh.

Mamalaina said...

Well, I guess you really can't have it all...beautiful cake, amazing penmanship...and a brain!
*sigh*
I do have to say, I'm a little confused about the purple swirly writting and the flower for "Jason" but uh...I'll just leave that one alone...

Mella said...

But the writing on the first cake looks very pretty. That's something !

Eternal Lizdom said...

These are som eof my FAVORITE kinds of Wrecks!! True classics!

~Anne said...

Who says these are non-English speakers? There are plenty of American born ridiculously literal folks out there!

wv: iroater - seeing these sorts of things just makes me iroater and iroater.

Anonymous said...

ridonkulous

HorribleLicensePlates said...

How could you really think someone wanted that on a cake? It's just amazing.

Kelli W said...

I feel so sorry for Jason!! What guy wants a cake with purple writing and flowers!

Cathy Santarsiero, "The Christmas Corgi" said...

You are killing me. At least give a fair warning, I choked on my coffee I laughed so hard when I saw this.

Anonymous said...

The 2nd cake is clogged up that it makes my head hurt.

Jason's cake looks yummy.

ilovebabyquilts said...

I <3 these cakes. That chocolate one really would have been pretty, but instead the wreckerator drove it into a wall - bam! A wreck.

Anonymous said...

I feel sorry for Jason for getting such a girly cake. And that lettering is so perfect!

I, too, am beginning to think people are ordering these 'mistakes' on purpose.

Cake Wrecks is creating monsters....

GeekByMarriage said...

These are the kind of cakes that get me to giggling. I can't...stop...must...breathe!

Anonymous said...

That first one is just too funny - something about that fact that it actually would have looked rather pretty.

Anonymous said...

You know, I'm thinking the person who ordered the first cake was telling the bakery that they'd give them a big tip if the cake was done before 12.

Maybe?

James Bong said...

Dumbfounding!

If my sweetie and I mashed up our last names, it would have been "Bongland". As funny as it would have been, the DEA surveillance probably would have gotten old quickly!

Steph said...

This makes me particularly sad because the text in the first one is so beautiful!!!

Katy said...

aw, poor Jason...

And it even looks like they've made a correction in the inscription!

Schmei said...

Classic cake wrecks!

And I have to argue against those who say these folks are "clearly not native English speakers"... I'd bet $5 that they all grew up speaking some version of English.

WV: triness. It doesn't matter if you can read or spell, what counts is your level of triness.

Anonymous said...

Does that first cake say its'? I can barely stand it when people use it's in place of the possessive! It had some quality cake potential though.

Anonymous said...

My husband and I thought about doing a last name mash-up. His last name is Scott and mine rhymes with Bunkly. So the only thing we could come up with was... Scunkly.

joyce said...

Classic. Amazing.

Maybe they left the big tip part on the cake to remind the receiver they promised !!

And I found a BBC story online about funny names. I am now armed and ready to pad the sign up lists:

Tim Burr, Carrie Oakey, Joe King, Justin Case, Barb Dwyer, Stan Still, Terry Bull, Anna Sasin, Doug Hole, Hazel Nutt, Rose Bush, Dr. Les Plack, Daisy Picking, Sue Mee, Mary Lee, and Penny Bunn

There really was a rich lady in Houston named Ima Hogg.

Unknown said...

I just don't understand it. Are people really that dumb? I'm blogging about this! Hope that's okay.

Anonymous said...

I am beginning to think that many of the wreckarators do not speak English. That is the only way I can imagine some of these mistakes is that they had no idea what they said.

Bibi said...

Oh Jason, oh Freymoto! It's easy to see your friends truly heart you, by giving you such pretty cakes before 12.

Stacy B. said...

I'm also wondering why Jason has a cake with a flower and purple icing.

Anonymous said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that top cake ("big tip") is for a kid named Jason?
with purple icing... and a flower?

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing they didn't get a tip afterall. XD!

ah! I <3 reading these kind of wrecks! It's amazing how people just don't have ANY common sense!

Anonymous said...

You can have two choices of the following: Fast. Pretty. Cheap. It's design law.

Unknown said...

I still find it so hard to understand how decorators can be so stupid. I decorated for several years and if someone put that on a piece of paper my brain would know what to do with it. And if I had ANY question the person's phone number is always on the order form. Sheesh! I'm just flabbergasted!

Aviatrix said...

This is my favourite kind of wreck, but my appreciation of them is dampened lately because I just can't believe that anyone would put that on a cake.

I envision instead a little horde of Wreckporters ordering cakes as ambiguously as possible and when asked for clarification claiming that yes thay DO want it on the cake, "It's an in-joke."

The worst I've seen is a t-shirt for a "D + D" tournament and it turned out that they printed exactly what was on the form. The person who did the ordering didn't know how to draw an ampersand and thought the t-shirt printers would magically know to convert her plus to one. Now I know we're lucky the t-shirt didn't say "instead of plus put an ampersand" at the bottom.

Anonymous said...

that would of been the best cake ever made. Fred Smilek is the acting president of the Society to Save Endangered Species. It was founded two years ago by Fred Smilek along with his two best friends Charles and Jonathan. http://www.fredjsmilek.com

Anonymous said...

THESE are the kinds of wreck that ONLY a native English speaker -- a very, VERY, VERRRRRY dim one -- can come up with. A non-native speaker would come up to clarify what the order meant.

this is really depressing. a part of our taxes are going towards creating these half-literate nitwits who think they know it all (and people still blame immigrants - wow!!)

...shaking head at wrecks, and at many of the comments...

Scritzy said...

Thank you. I needed that laugh today!

Word verification: dessing. Maybe the decorator thought dessing up the cake with a purple flower would help.

peewee said...

ummm, I also love that it seems to be upside down too!

*~*Lis*~* said...

I'll say it again - these people DRIVE themselves to work!!!

Anonymous said...

@James Bong - Cheer up, if we'd done the clever mashup thing we would have been Johnson Sand.

Don't guys get afflicted with that after hanging about at the beach?

Anonymous said...

wow -- so my dad's 60th birthday is coming up and i'm PETRIFIED to order a cake... perhaps it should just say

Happy Birthday... and then we'll buy those tacky candles that say 60 so there's no scary wrecks made... you've scared me from ordering cake :)

Katherine said...

I love it! Thanks for my smiles today!

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, there are *many* "concrete" thinkers out there who will follow directions to a "T"! :P

Anonymous said...

Oh, wow, that was fantastic.

I love it!

But heart in the place of word love.

And I immensely enjoy the outlining of the number 12. It makes it look like it's supposed to be read with more intensity than the rest of the sentence.

Like: "Big tip if it gets there before TWELVE!"

Jayunderscorezero said...

This is definitely my favourite kind of wreck. Ugly cakes are just ugly, but ones like this - and like the "one that started it all" - just reek of a whole other level of idiocy altogether. So, so funny.

afterthoughtcomposer said...

hahaha...i am reading these at the office and that "put heart in place of word love" cake gave me away...I laughed out loud.

*woops* :)

Anonymous said...

it took me a while to understand the first cake. I thought it was a virginity joke with the flower being there and everything! I FINALLY got it after about ten minutes. Ugh.

Grumpy said...

I'm pretty jaded and, in general, nothing really surprises me, especially examples of human stupidity. However, these literal cake inscriptions always make my jaw drop. I love it when you post them -- in a gawking at a car wreck kind of way -- but OMG are there some stupid people out there.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE (replace with heart) Cake Wrecks!

How do the wreckerators make it thru life on a day to day basis?? Are they the ones who try to blow dry their hair in the tub? or iron clothes on their bodies?
Are bakeries hiring illegals who do not read english?

Morgan said...

It's called a portmanteau, Jen.

Nat said...

I don't care what it says, just let me at that chocolate cake! Oh yeah!

falcon said...

The chocolate cake would have been kind of pretty too... I think these people ddeeefffinetly can't speak english.

CollyWolly said...

what 12 year old person named JASON (I am assuming this is a male) likes a purple birhtday cake, with flowers?

Margaret said...

Well... I'm sure there could be some boys called Jason who would like purple and flowers...

Aaaaand... it really could be a girl anyway!

http://www.babynameshub.com/gendercompare.cfm?Name=jason&Submit=Go!

Margaret said...

Um, yeah, meant to add... if the purple, flowers and name are all good, as others have mentioned, it's a shame that such a beautiful cake was spoiled by the literal mistake (which surely can't have been deliberate).
And the <3 one... oh dear...

Mad Izatie said...

this is whyt you should write down exactly what you want.

Kerry said...

Well, this is funny, really it is!! But the Wreckerators just write what is on that little piece of paper that they are told to copy, verbatim. The real dummies, of course, are the people who order the cakes...THEY are the ones who presumably are supposed to speak/write understandable English. If I were a Wreckerator, at minimum wage, I would do the same thing. And so would you.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that lots of non-native speakers of English can spell "definitely", not "definetly" :)

fuzzandfuzzlet said...

lol, omgosh the chocolate cake has to be on the top ten list. That is too funny.

Anonymous said...

thats a classic, put heat in place of word love! I must admit, I was guilty of the same thing once crazily writing card messages for flowers on valentines day, I wrote lol instead of lots of love, luckily we caught it berfore it went out!
I always look forward to your latest posts, it makes a crappy day great.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the literal lols! You know, it took me about 5 minutes before I worked out what the writing said on BOTH cakes...the writings were so...swirly. Unless "Jason" was a girl, I'd feel really bad for the kid for that pretty flower and PURPLE lettering... (you know what they say about purple, eh? lol) As for the second one, the decorator obviously decided they'd try to fit everything in O_o

The first cake looks really nice from a distance, until you read the inscription. When I first read it, I suspected that the buyer meant they'd give the baker/decorator a big tip if delivered by 12pm/am... you know, sort of an incentive to get it in early or on time?

Anonymous said...

Thank you to Vinca Leaf Quilts. I totally couldn't figure out what the first cake said!

Anonymous said...

Totally unrelated, but just got an e-mail with these fantastic cakes. Enjoy!!
http://www.tom-phillips.info/images.a/russian.cake.contest.htm

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, I love these - good old fashion wrecks. The candles adding up to thirteen are too funny. Although a thirteen-year-old would know what a wreck the cake is, so that's too bad. At least when the cakes are for little kids, only the parents are disappointed.

jackie31337 said...

When I see these beautiful-but-literal cakes, I can't help thinking what kind of wrecks I would have made if I'd had to write inscriptions on cakes in Finnish before I really spoke the language well. I suspect I would have made cakes very similar to these... except mine would not have been as beautifully decorated.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Margaret for pointing out that *some* 12-years-old boys named Jason might actually like the purple flower. It's a refreshing change from the "Happy Birthday with Violent Superhero" macho crap that so many parents seem to think is the ONLY acceptable boy cake. -Robin the Catlady

Anonymous said...

Wow, how ridiculous. Haven't you ever thought that professional cake decorators are 'wrecking' cakes because customers can't follow directions?

You are supposed to write VERBATIM what you want on the cake. The decorators aren't stupid - they're actually the ones with the sense of humor.

Jenene said...

I just don't understand how this happens! I think Alisa Knits must be right about them not speaking English very well. How else could these cakes happen?

Anonymous said...

Cakes aside (and these are hilarious and tremendously sad), it disturbs me that so many comments have indicated surprise or disbelief that a cake with purple writing and a purple flower could be for a guy. First off, I would suggest that you all take a look at what male teens are wearing these days. (I know, I teach high school.) Pink is no longer verboten, sneakers come in all colors of the rainbow, etc. And hasn't society gotten to a point where colors don't indicate anything? As a girl, I always wanted a blue birthday cake when I was a kid, but way back then it was considered unusual. We're in the 21st century, folks; purple is far from feminine. And does that mean there is only one acceptable color for a guy's cake--blue? Is red OK? Green? What about orange? What makes a color a masculine color anyway?

--Lisa

WV--nonolesa: what I heard when I asked for a blue birthday cake as a little girl. (My name is Lisa!)

Anonymous said...

People, we have no idea how old 'Jason' is - stop insisting (s)he's 12. The '12' refers to time the customer wanted the cake delivered, not the age of the recipient.

Apparently the wreckerators aren't the only ones who can't read.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe this cake is real. I worked at a bakery. Several people are involved in the cake-making process. First, there is the person writing the cake order. Second, the cake decorator looks at the order to make sure nothing is misspelled or confusing to them. Third, the same cake decorator (or a different one) puts the icing on. Finally, all the envious/bored clerks look at their cakes.

Alice said...

I would be really, really entertained if they delivered it on time and still got their tip.

Anonymous said...

Apparently it's not OK for a guy to have purple frosting on a cake? what is wrong with you people???

Anonymous said...

When I saw this I thought it was some parents wishing their soon-to-die kid an early birthday...

Valerie Pilgreen said...

My husband said for more info on where they find these people go to darwinawards dot com.

Anonymous said...

Has anybody offered a serious explanation for how these kinds of mistakes are even possible? If so, I'd love to read it.

Anonymous said...

THAT is funny.

Infrared Goggles said...

I <3 this blog, and this post is the absolute best! I've passed it along... As a family tradition, I make ridiculous cakes ala the groom's cake in Steel Magnolias--remember the bloody armadillo--? My son had a Mike Mulligan themed 3rd birthday in which his father made a steam shovel platform with working shovel (pulley and string) in our woodshop, for which I created a custom cake with appropriately dirty icing (Oreo crumbles). Voila, Marianne! The trend seems to be that the more eye rolls I get from the other moms, the more my son likes the cake. Really, this is now one of my favorite blogs, thank you.

Stephanie said...

these ones are my favorite.

Anonymous said...

Whenever cakes like these are featured I assume they're phone orders-- and the person taking the order isn't paying much attention and/or is waaaay too literal. It just seems like lost translation between the verbal and the visual. For that reason alone they are my very favorite wrecks.

Also, it's really amusing that the number of comments that assert the wreckers must be non-native english speakers are equal to the number of comments where the poster doesn't understand the wreck or why it's funny. (Jason is not turning 12, people.)

Anonymous said...

Too Funny! I wish I still had a picture of the birthday cake my then-fiance ordered for my 19th birthday. He wanted "Happy Birthday Anna" in red. Instead, Dairy Queen wrote "Happy Birthday Red" on it, and then to rectify the situation (instead of comping it or making a new one) they poured dip-cone chocolate all over the "red". It was downright sexy.

Anonymous said...

Yeeaaahhh, i'm not sure what the big hubbub is about a male having a cake with purple frosting and–gasp!–a flower drawn on it. You'd think we should have to put a wrench or a tractor on every cake that's not for a girl. Let me guess: you all dressed your girl babies in pink and the boys in blue, right? As someone who likes cake, period, let me tell you something: it doesn't really matter what the cake looked like after it's been eaten and enjoyed.

Chillax.

and p.s.) in regards to someone's comment "are they hiring illegals at bakeries these days?": yes, probably, but at the one i worked at, we hired LEGALS as well, who sometimes spoke English as a second language. Don't let it frighten you too much, i'm sure you'll never have to speak a foreign language if you really don't want to.

Ignorant people calling other people ignorant? Pot, kettle, black.

It's just cake, folks.

Unknown said...

Ooh! I think the couple were Anime fans, because anime fans always come up with mashups of their favorite pairing's names so that other lolsp33k friends can understand them. Ex: SakuNaru (sakura+naruto), Amuto (Amu+Ikuto), etc...

Cupcakes Lady said...

No words to describe this. Waw. xx

Unknown said...

Duh...they used THE BIG TIP for the 12!