(Ah, phone orders, how I love thee...)This next one's a bit harder because of the lousy penmanship, but give it a minute: it'll come to you.
Did you get it? Huh? Didja?
Seriously, how fabulous is this? The baker took a simple two-word inscription ("You're 31!"), turned it into a three-word inscription, and then misspelled every word. ("Your thirtee won")
And then there's that comma. Just look at it, sitting there all nonchalantly, mocking my every attempt to comprehend its existence. Grr. I tell ya, if there's one thing I hate, it's smug punctuation marks. Yeah. It's all, "Hey, you should pause for breath here, even though the sentence has technically already ended." Aaaugghh!!
I can't take it anymore!
The comma must be stopped!!
[patting down hair]
Ahem.
So, where were we?
Oh, right. Well, I have no idea how old Alicia here is...
...but at least there are no stinkin' commas.Jennifer S., Cari B., & Alicia W., I've noticed that more people are suggesting I take a day off lately. I have no idea why.
- Related Wreckage: Tassel Hassles
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104 comments | Post a Comment
Took me a minute to get the first one.
The second one is... well, I think you pretty much covered it.
And the third, well, someone needs to learn how to spell. It wasn't bad aside from that.
The second one is not a misspelling. "Thirtee" is just the name of their racing horse. And the rest of the inscription is obviously on the other side of the cake. It says "and now you're rich!"
You know, she's a tweenager.
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
Added to the list of things every bakery manager should ask their new hirees to spell (in addition to "Congratulations" and "birthday") are numbers. Who knew they would prove to be so hard? Oh wait, Cake Wrecks readers...
Sorry, I have to stop reading this blog. The stupidity factor out there is starting to depress me.
bwahahahaha, what a great start to my day!
The third was such a cute cake too, to bad they made it all confusing, I can't eat it until I figure out just what that is supposed to mean.
Is she twenty? Because the cake looks a little jouvinile.
Is she a tween? That would make more sense, but I didn't know they celebrated with cake for that.
And if it has anything to do with a tweet, or twitter, or anything of that nature, I am throwing my computer out the window.
I'll do it!
Becky
I think that last cake was attempting to say "twentieth", but I'm not entirely sure. :/
Maybe she's a tween of indeterminate age.
My guess is Alicia is ten or twelve. You know, a "tweener". Or something,
Halfway 230 . . . that's pretty amazing! Considering I want to live to 104, even halfway 230 is beating that!
I don't think Alicia *wants* anyone to know how old she is. Kind of like Aunt Mary in Anne of Ingleside (part of the Anne of Green Gables series) by LM Montgomery. Remember her 55 yellow roses, 55 candles on the cake and her subsequent departure? (Much to the family's relief!) Alicia is taking no chances!
I'm an English teacher . . . don't get me started on those misplaced commas!!!!!
I think Alicia is 20. That is a horrible misspelling of twentieth.
Which is a good argument for not trying to spell out the numbers. Just use the number and the handy "th". 20th. See? Easy.
(And Jen, it's okay to take some time off before your book tour. You well deserve it!)
Who wants to congratulate a 15-year-old on being halfway to 30, anyway? (Well, I'm pretty sure it's not a 115-year-old.)
Ironically, the last cake could have used a comma before "Alicia."
tweeteenth = 22nd?
I have no idea how old Alicia is either...I would guess 20, except for the banana-yellow pumpkin carriage.
...why is it yellow again, anyway?
Some of these cakes just make me feel so much better about my amateur skills and these certainly do! :)
I'm guessing Alicia is 20.
Since I am older than thirtee won and therefore well past tweeteen, my only hope left is to get one of these cakewrecks on my 115th birthday.
WV: dilie - No dilie-dallying here! Obviously haste made (cakewreck) waste.
Oh, but I suspect the comma's riding in style inside the pumpkin carriage. Just because we can't see the comma, it doesn't mean it's not there, mocking us silently from within. Once lowly and functional, if pure and grammatical, then transported through wishful grammar magic into a life where it now travels anywhere it wants to go, doing none of the actual work for which it was originally intended.
Maybe the second cake is the beginning of an old english poem about the winning of 'thirtee' dollars, and we just can't see the second part.
Mm-hm. I'm sticking with that.
My guess is Alicia is finally old enough to be obnoxious with Twitter.
It looks like the inscription reads, your thirties won. I have no idea what that would mean, but at least the words wouldn't be misspelled.
Ri.
The second cake isn't so bad - well, except for the penmanship. It just says "your thirties won" - no misspellings if you read it that way. And the comma would even be okay if there was a name on the cake. "Your thirties won, Jen." They beat you. :)
Jen.... you rock!
Is your tweeteenth birthday the one where you're finally old enough to have a Twitter account? If so, congratulations, @Alicia!
I thought the You're thirty one one said "Youn thinkr won" which I chose to interpret as "You think wrong". But what you said makes a lot more sense than an Engrish^2 birthday cake insulting it's chosen recipient.
"Tweeteenth" aside, I love that simple Cinderella's carriage. I might copy that one for DD's birthday. It's definitely do-able for an amateur like me. As a bonus, I can spell!
"Half way 230" looks like the work of someone who's entirely too familiar with 420.
You know what are worse than misplaced commas? Misplased apostrophes. And it isn't just cakes. There is this instrument store near me...IN NEON they assert that they sell piano's and keyboard's. IN NEON.
I think they took the comma that belonged on the third cake and splatted it on the second cake.
I'm pretty sure my sister, brother, and I all had tweeteeners the same year. We were about to adopt them out to other families and only accept them back when they were civilized a la the old feudal system.
What's a tweeteenth??
We sometimes use these cakes to teach grammar, spelling and punctuation to junior high students
Unfortunately for Alicia, you turn into a pumpkin at midnight on your "Tweeteenth" birthday. That's why most people avoid having this particular birthday.
adnoxious.blogspot.com
Taking aim at lousy advertising
I thought for a moment that maybe the yellow pumpkin was actually an onion coach a la Shrek, but no, that greenery is definitely vine-ish! Maybe it's halfway between morphing from orange to gold?
Oh, these are classic wrecks. Hilarious! And your commentary is always spot on, Jen. Can't wait to see you in Austin! (Then you can take a break!)
Cheers!
Commas, I believe, are underutilized, as are, I believe, dictionaries,
WV: larde Larde, these are some wrecky cakes!
I think Alicia is Sweet 16, but that it was a phone order.
????
@ Anon 10:05 -
Best comment ever! You're my new hero!
Technically, the third one should have a comma, despite your hatred towards them. Since the cake is addressing Alicia, there should be one between birthday and Alicia.
I bet the first one is supposed to mean that they are turning 25. It is sometimes said that the person is half-way to 30 there meaning that they are half-way between 20 and 30. The message still got lost in translation but it makes more sense than for a 15-yr-old's birthday. If only people could learn to spell.
Maybe Alicia has been Tweeting for 10 months???
i like the pumpkin one.
I thought that the middle cake read "Your thirteen now," which somehow doesn't seem quite as bad as "thirtee won".
Oh! I thought the middle one was supposed to be "You're thirteen now", and the decorator had dyslexia! I see now, there's no "n", either. Wow. thirtee won.
And the first one... 115? ;)
What is that the third one? An heirloom tomato on wheels?
I like how Alicia is represented by a Pumpkin Carriage.
hmm interesting.
i think the last one might be trying to say "twenteen"
Here, all my friends said you're not twenty your 'twenteen', so still a teenager.
i think its to ease you into the twenties...and adult hood.
so maybe that was what it was supposed to say but got misspelled!
as ever, who knows.
katie (what-katie-does.blogspot)
And is the third cake a picture of a yellow onion? It's definitely not a pumpkin!! And Shrek had a white onion. So I just don't know.
Staggering how ppl make such glaring mistakes.
~Amy B
Hey, the world's oldest lady died last week, at the age of 115- halfway to 230. Maybe there is something to that cake....
Jen, love the blog, love the posts. And I have to do this.. ok maybe not, but I'm caving in to temptation anyway:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
:D
I'm gonna say that Alicia is 20. It's like saying you're now a tweenager ANNND you reached your twentieth birthday!!
Okay. *Cracks knuckles*.
"Half way 230": I think anonymous is right, and it must mean 25.
"Your thirtee won": I can't even hazard a guess, I'm laughing too hard. It's really sad when the baker's penmanship is so bad that we can't tell just how wreckly the cake is.
"Tweeteenth": I can see mashing up "twelve" and "thirteen" and getting "tweeteen". 13 is still a little old to be getting a pumpkin coach on your cake, but only a little.
The first one took me a minute. The second one made me think "your thirties won" which made me wonder if it was a 40th birthday cake. Who knows about the last one. What birthday is celebrated with a garlic clove on wheels?
Bahhhh! Maybe the cake decorator meant to spell Thirteen but just had a wicked bad speech impediment! So funny. Love the site, keep the laughs coming!
www.justchowbella.com
I thought twentieth too.
"your thirtee won,"
Why the comma? Well, it was a phone order and the customer obviously figured the decorator knew how to spell, but they wanted to be sure that an ! be placed at the end. Illiterate decorator not only didn't know how to spell, but also was completely unfamiliar with basic punctuation and thought a comma was an exclamation point! [rolls eyes]
Question? Why wouldn't a bakery have a list posted of basic words like congratulations and graduate and give instructions to NEVER write out number names, just stick with the numbers?
"Half Way 230" will always be 25 in our family... after celebrating my husband's 25th birthday with a few too many drinks at the premium cinema, I said to him, "Wow, 25! You're half way to 30!" He gave me a funny look and said, "don't you mean 50?" Me, "Umm... no - 25 is half way between 20 and 30!" He'll be turning half way to 40 this friday. :)
I agree that the "tweeteenth" might actually be what the caller wanted, assuming that their daughter was very excited to be a TEENager and didn't want to wait until she turned thirTEEN, so they came up with some weird name for twelve using "teen."
But....probably not. :)
Holy crap. That middle one makes me feel stabby.
On the third cake, maybe all that yellow in a round shape put 'Tweety' into the mind of the 'artist'. Thus, we have 'tweeteith' or however they misspelled it. :)
Taylor (My Older Brothers) @ 9:34. Your comment literally made me laugh out loud!!! This post is hilarious,
(hehehehe)
@Jess
I think you're onto something here. Maybe it was in honor of the world's oldest person.
But does anyone else think the title of "World's Oldest Person" is kinda cursed?
The current title-holder is always in the news because they died.
Who would give a 150 year old a gray cake anyway?
WV: flortee - actually, I'm flortee flor!
I can't believe that an adult who has a job can be that dumb. These always amaze me.
I want to be tweeteenth!! it sounds more fun than 49.
Never thought I'd actually be an advocate for those number candles, but these cakes put up a good argument. However, not sure what digits you'd need for tweeteenth. I think that's the number that comes between elevendy-twelve and a gazillion............
Classics!!! You are going to have to add another chapter to your book!
Day off? No way! Keep 'em comin! So much fun!
Ahh, I remember being Tweeteen,
(1) "Half Way 230"? {Made by someone who's ALL the way to STUPID?}
(2) "your thirtee won,"? {And my SENSIBILITIES have LOST!}
(3) Assuming that "Alicia" isn't actually a teenage parakeet...
Uuhhh...
Fu...
get it. FugGET it.
I don't know how old Alicia is, either; I just hope that she's young enough not to be revolted by that Cinderella-style *coach* wannabe. Which just happens to be pretty darn...well...unlovely.
Anything over... oh... say, 5 years old~~yeah, fugGET IT.
Oh, and Melinda @ 11:02:
In-NEON punctuation errors??!!
I hate that! It's truly despicable!
I say the offenders should be electrocuted with their own stupid signs!
=^@@^=
I'm actually thinking Alicia's "Tweeteenth" is supposed to be "Thirteenth" or even "Sweet Tenth".
:p But that's just me and my crazy brain.
Maybe the first one is a diet celebration cake for someone who used to weigh 420. Yeah, a diet celebration cake makes total sense. ;)
Lize
Well I just think Alicia is in denial all together! And her family and local bakery are obviously supporting her delusion. Yet, I have to wonder why the ugly pink border stops halfway around the cake. I mean, REALLY? The girl is in denial about whatever her freakin' age is and you can't even give her a little support? Is a full, ugly pink border too much to ask?!!!!! Ugh.... at least it's a birthday, so there can be margaritas. Thank goodness, because my head hurts!
One of my biggest pet peeves working at a bakery was mis-spellings, and the decorators doing stupid interpretations on cakes (or order forms for that matter). I don't know how many times I caught a bad one and had to call the customer to check what they wanted so that we could avoid cakes like this!! I know we missed some too :-(
Half way 230, so the other half of y'all better catch up and eat more cake so we will all way 230 and win The Biggust Miss Spellars contest.
anneinchicago:
I think the third cake is supposed to say Sweet Sixteenth.
Say it as if you have a lisp.
Tweeteenth??? LMAO!
Vickie! Aunt Mary Maria Blythe, the visitor who stayed what? a couple of years? And who was a miserable old boot in the bargain! Love that someone else remembers her!
wv: ainat. "Mary Maria was no joy to live with."
"Ainat the truth."
The coach on the last cake is actually nice. But how disengaged from what you are doing do you have to be to patiently pipe out the message on the second cake and never catch a clue?
Word Verification: poksnize. To painstakingly do a good job of exactly the wrong thing.
I have no idea what my "thirtee" is, but I'm glad it didn't lose!
Thanks for the laughs.. I really needed that! That second one was great.
Oh how I wish I were tweetween again.
Wasn't there a song about that?
She is 20- "Twentieth"!
The first cake is a wreck, but not how you think. Clearly the person ordering the cake is getting it for her WeightWatchers class, celebrating the fact that of the class, "Half Weigh 230". So, you know, progress!
I honestly read the second one as "you thirsty wurm" and assumed it was a fanfic tribute to Frank Hubert and his Dune series.
After all, the swirling frosting could be those barren sandhills of Dune.
Yes, they could! (Except maybe slightly more moist and involving sugar.)
Ah, I REALLY needed that laugh today! Thank you, Mr. Comma!
*starts singing* "She was only twenty-seventeen! She was a something-something beauty queen! She's a brain, brain, brain sister!"
I still haven't got the first one (I'm french : it's already a hard job for me to understand "real" english, so mispelled english is even harder !) But really, when I want a good laughing break, I'm coming on your blog... My favorite posts are on baby shower cake's : so incredible !
Given the girlishness of the image, I'm pretty sure tweeteen is twelve--twe (twelve) and teen because by golly she's a teen even if she is 12.
-a grandmother of 4 girls, aged twee-teen to 6.
The white one with the pink icing--I read that as "your thirties won" (though mispelled of course as thirtees). Like, the entire decade you've been thirty has won?
I think its meant to say "Twenteen." As in... you're 20 but want to be a teenager still.
"your thirtee won"--I'm 40 in a few months, my thirties DEFINITELY won--because every time I look in the mirror, I see that clearly, I -lost-!!
"tweeteenth"--"you're a teenager, and this Cinderella-esque thing you're STILL on is just too twee to live with."
And as for lurking EEEEEEEEEeeevil commas....oh my, yes. Commas are stealthy little creatures, always creeping up and insinuating themselves where they don't belong--sometimes in place of a full-stop, but more often, stealing the rightful home of the noble semicolon. Do NOT get me started on those pretenders to the semicolonial throne!!
The last cake actually SHOULD have a comma! (Or is that part of the joke?)
Anyone else read the first one as "Half Way, 210"?
Yeah, ok, the comma - just killed me.
Alicia is obviously 4! They just really messed up the spelling of that one. It's ok, she can't read yet anyway.
I have just found your site and you are freakin' hilarious! I love the cakes and the commentary.
I almost peed my pants laughing at the smug comma remark. LOL! Thank you for the monday laughs. I am totally subscribing to your feed!
Heh heh heh... Number two looks like "You're thirty...wow."
I say the first cake means she's turning fifteen!! See, half way to (2) thirty! Which is fifteen, I'm pretty sure.
Guess what!!!!! I think that you,
Ahahahaha!! That was enjoyable,
I am annoying you intentionally,
I think these cakes are hilarious. Keep these hilarious wrecks a coming.
Your site is hilarious, I am laughing out loud. I had to write and tell you that while I was reading my 5 year old son came over and demanded the mole rat and cockroach cakes for his next birthdays. Thanks for that. I do occassional cakes while we are posted overseas where we can't even get a misspelled bakery cake!
The tweeteenth birthday must be halfway to the eleventy first birthday.
I mean, the first one obviously says 115! But no-one has ever been 115 in my book...whoever has that cake, keep it until it melts! It's one-of-its-kind!