Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Abbreviation Sensation Sweeping the Nation

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

I guess it started innocently enough.

When your "Yay Jesus" crowds out the rest of the text, you cut a few corners on the "birthday" to cram it all in. Ok, fine. I get it.

The problem started when some wreckerator somewhere looked at that and thought, "Hey, that saves me four whole letters! I should write it that way ALL the time!"

And so...[dramatically steepling fingers]...it began.

First a dash was added, to make it seem more respectable:

It's an unwritten rule in baking that you can butcher a name as much as you like, so long as it's followed by a question mark.


Then they ditched the 'B':


Next, the "day":

The first 28 were delicious.


And finally, inevitably, we arrived at...this.

One can only hope they were charging by the letter.

Can it get any worse, you ask?


Oh, please. You know better than to ask that by now, don't you? [smirk]


It's like a code. Am I wishing you a happy birthday? Maybe, maybe not. I might be wishing you a Herniated Bowels day. Because, yeah, I do that sometimes.


And yet, shockingly, we still haven't gotten to the worst part of this whole abbreviation craze.


Think with me for a moment: are there any holidays out there that might not do well in an abbreviated form? Any at all? C'mon. Think about it.

Give up?

Oh, good. I'm positively itching to show you this last photo.

It's a Valentine's Day cake. Scout's honor.


Thanks, Erin C., Aimee P., Michelle W., Angela C., Darnell, Elizabeth, & Chris. Y'all are hunk a' hunks of burnin' love in my book.
Amanda | Glittericity said...

Enjoy your VD? Oh BOY. Are you sure that's a Valentines cake, and not a passive-aggressive shot by a jilted lover? "Oh, sweeeeeetheart, I didn't want to stay with you forever anyway. Btw, I have herpes! Enjoy, ta-ta for now! xoxo"

Tracy O said...

I so needed that laugh today - TY!
WV: desserd - If you gave me that VD cake, you desserd what you get...

SalannB said...

Geez Louise, those are some whoppers today...especially the VD cake! My eye is twitching...

Tricia L said...

Clearly, the person who takes the order shoulders half the responsibility for these wrecks. Oh, sure, "HB" is a good abbreviation for "Happy Birthday", but only if you are the one who will be armed with the piping bag. (Like my grocery list often reads: "TP, PT, PP, GG". I know what that means, but I wouldn't trust it to anyone else.)

And thanks for the new "Beth" cake. Emailed the "Betch" cake to my friend Beth, and she wasn't sure how to take it. By the way, is that a brownie cake or just some really bad icing job?

wv: lepin
"Lepin lizards, Batman, them's some ugly cakes."

Alyssa said...

Oh no...that last cake is from Marble Slab! At least the cake would be totally delicious!

Amanda Mac said...

VD???? Bwahahahahaha!!!!

"Yeah, for VD I gave my old woman flowers from Wal-Mart, a box of stale chocolates, and syphillis."

Anonymous said...

OMG OMG! LOL

Anne said...

OK, so "bday" I get, even if I prefer writing out the full word (like it's so long and hard to spell ... oh, wait). But just "H" for happy? Really, people? It's someone's special day, and you can't even be bothered to write out a 5-letter word for a positive emotion?

The VD one is hilarious, though! I'd love to see a doctor take advantage of that one to promote testing.

Angela said...

I haven't laughed like this over a blog post in a very, very long time.

Joel Polowin said...

"HB DAY" would be in celebration of pencils?

Kelly said...

Oh, the VD takes the cake for sure! And your witty "hunk of burning love" comment at the end made my morning!

jo said...

LOL that last cake is a riot! and possibly an insult, underlined with a sweet pink heart shape and all its irony.

HB Emil sounds like a secret code...(He's Back, Emil! Hide Booty, Emil! Hide Body Emil) etc.

then poor Nat. do they not know his name or whether or not to wish him a happy B-day? maybe it's not birthday (again, code).

Happy Day with the tie dye airbrush looks trippy! I wonder if they're celebrating a good mood induced by controlled substances.

and #1 is very puzzling. "Yay Jesus?" Is this is a very Christian group and they're celebrating their faith and a birthday? Unless Erin is giving a cake to Jesus and had the inscription written like a note instead of a normal inscription. Or again, we are assuming it's a birthday and maybe it's not and she's congratulating Jesus on something else...

too much thinking today! i feel like i'm trying to solve a puzzle

Meg said...

*snort* Yes, because one should ALWAYS enjoy their VD. "Honey, I promise, you're gonorrhea-lly love this cake." HA!

Jules AF said...

The whole "Yay Jesus" thing made me too distracted to enjoy the post.

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Hi Boob Nazi,

Yeah. We looked really hard for another one but that was really the best cake for the flow of the post. I'm pretty sure no offense was meant on the cake though.

Sorry about that,

john

Anonymous said...

It's a Valentine's Day cake ---- yeahhhhhh, surrre it is.

I'd rather think it was from some guy's girlfriend to his wife. But then, I'm twisted like that, and think it would be a great one to insert into a murder mystery.

~~Di

WV: [blank] - now what??

Denise said...

My friend makes cookies on Valentine's Day and writes Happy VD on them purposely to mess with people.

Christina Berry said...

Oh.My.Dang. That last one is KILLER! Lolololol

Unknown said...

Does anyone else notice that on the HB Day "cake" someone snitched a cupcake from the top right? Or were we all distracted by "Yay Jesus" and Happy VD?

This is quite the Wrecktacular Wrecktacular.

jeff.w.mcclung said...

I remember back in grade school, a parent brought in a plate full of heart-shaped cookies for the whole class on Valentine's Day. The cookies all had "Happy VD" written on them in icing.

Good times.

Unknown said...

OMG enjoy your VD???? I highly doubt anyone would be enjoying a venereal disease! lol




check out my blog: nikkiscakery.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

These cakes are hilarious! I'm just wondering if the "Nat" cake was supposed to be "N'at," a la the Pittsburgh colloquialism? (Not that I would ever want that on a cake, it just makes more sense to me ;))

Anne-Marie said...

Okay, I'm going out on a bit of a limb here. My theory for cake #1 is that Erin's birthday is either very close to or is on Christmas Day, so the cake is celebrating a double birthday, so to speak. When my kids were small, we always sang Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas Eve.

As always, this post is amazing! To think that an actual business establishment would intentionally put "Happy VD" on a food item for sale completely cracks me up!

Aliza said...

@Meg: "you're gonorrhea-lly love this cake"... brilliant.

Yay Jesus... a bit odd to put on a cake, why not just use a cross instead the balloons if you're that religious? But, OK.

Poor Nat... hope her future cakes are better, or else she's not going to undersatnd the pleasure of "b-day" cakes!!

Tie Dye... Happy Day at least makes sense. Especially if they're mindset goes with the decor.

And you do say "Happy 29th" to people. With the teensy tiny addition, the cake works. Without it... I guess Beth was depressed, and is now happy? Or there were 28 previous Beths, and they weren't happy??

Poor Emil. Horrible cake, and it looks like they tried correcting it!

HB Day-- I'm with @Joel on this one: this CCC is for pencils. And they didn't finish drawing it.

VD cake... love it. That was laugh-out-loud funny! And I liked the itching and burning comments too :)

WV: I'm "schar" that there's even worse out there...

Pamela said...

Well I find it mind boogling to see such see wreaks. Don't any of these stores or bakeries have bosses who over see whats leaving the back room? The VD cake is a hoot, but I have to say it is a strawberry cake so I would just have to eat it.

faunablues said...

worse than that VD abbreviation is those randomly cut chunks of anemic strawberry. They're not in season in February - let it go.

WV: patent
Writing out "happy birthday" as a professional decorator is patently obvious.

MamaChristy said...

If you aren't careful, one V.D. might lead to another...

Erika said...

I can't believe those are pros! They look like someone picked-up a to-go cake and did their own writing... which might have been a better choice!

Anonymous said...

That last one made me laugh out loud! Too funny!

TisforTonya said...

oh.... my. still can't quite breathe.

How have you managed to not throw that cake out there before today???? that's been driving you crazy hasn't it?

Unknown said...

IIRC, "Jesus" is a reasonably common name, especially among Spanish speaking people, and maybe others. Perhaps the "Jesus" cake is for someone with that name.

Alternately, it could be a Christmas cake, though why it would then have a "1" and "Erin" on it could be a mystery.

WV: dinester
Eating some of these cakes could really be a dinester

QuiteLight said...

I'm not sure an Easter Day cake would be much better... at least for the guys...

ChakaKhan said...

But you forgot suggested "abbreuiations"

Like this:
http://content.pyzam.com/funnypics/3/pyzamnovanddec.jpg

Who says a google search for "Costco cakes" while at work produces useless results?

Ruth said...

I seriously keep forgetting that these are "proffessionally" made cakes!

NiteNurse said...

HB Day = Horrific Baking Day. YEAH, it's a real holiday.

just sayin'.

Tindy said...

My dear Jen, I'm going to assume that that "Nat" cake actually says, "Happy B-Day N'at?," in a sad, sorry attempt at Pittsburghese. ;)

Anonymous said...

You made my day with that VD cake.

KarlyH said...

I think it's an unwritten rule that no one "enjoys" V.D., but hey, maybe it's the curable kind and they're celebrating?

Anonymous said...

"Jesus" is a very common name. Either they are having a duel cake or it has been a tough year for the birthday girl.

AlisonH said...

Ho-lee mo-lee. Wow.

Fluffy Cow said...

At least the "Yay Jesus" cake was not combined with the VD cake...

Tiffany in Topeka said...

Oh dear.... !!

I like Amanda's idea... "passive-aggressive break up cake" for the win!

Kaede said...

Shouldn't the VD cake go with the Story of Amber?
FaunaBlues, speak for your self about strawberry not being in season during February. They ARE in season where I live in February. We start getting fresh strawberries around Christmas here.

StrangeLiz said...

I'm a huge fan on how the "29th" is all small and at an angle on the "Happy Beth" cake, like it was an after thought. "Oh no, we forgot the birthday when writing on the cake! What do we do?!" "How old are they turning? Just shove the age in there, it'll totally look intentional."

"Yay Jesus" had me in stitches. as did "Enjoy your V.D.", although I freely admit to being the one who makes all the sad, bitter VD puns when February rolls around

Val said...

Until I got married my initials were V.D. Neither I nor my parents realized the horror until my boss pointed it out to me when I was 16. I was furious.

Unknown said...

Wow...where's the WTF cake? LOL

Anonymous said...

I think the last cake was someone's clever way of letting their partner know that he/she should go get tested. Beats the heck out a boring phone call.

Anonymous said...

@Boob Nazi and John: Jesus is a common Spanish name, and maybe his Irish friend Erin wanted to wish him congrats. OR, maybe it was a cake for Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus.

It distracted me too, but for other reasons. (as in WTF does the inscription mean?)

Deborah said...

wow, that last one is really funny! Imagine seeing that one in the bakery pick-up window-eeeeww!

Unknown said...

I've never posted before, but I LOLed at the VD and had to comment! Ty

Tricia L said...

Hey, faunablues. It is strawberry season in Florida in February. It makes the national news every year because they have to flood the fields with water to protect the berries from freezes.

Mary Connealy said...

I always snicker, and smirk, but I rarely laugh out loud.

You got me today.

Anonymous said...

@Karly H: they may not enjoy VD but I'm sure they enjoyed what they were doing when they GOT VD

Nantucket Cat said...

Great post! However, I do take issue with one part of the commentary: "Nat" is not a butchered name. It happens to be my name, and it's the name of at least two other people I've met. It's also the name of several fictional characters, such as the title character of the book "Nat, Nat, the Nantucket Cat." The cake still has issues, but don't assume the name was an error.

Shadyman said...

"HB Day" must mean exam day. Don't forget, you need to use those HB pencils to fill out the Scantron sheets!

And "Enjoy your VD" sounds more like a spiteful ex's cake than a Valentine's cake...

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Nantucket Cat,

We were just saying that the decorator probably got the name wrong, thus the question mark.

john

Melch said...

Oh no. I'm at work, trying to laugh only under my breath at a VD cake. I love this blog!

BADKarma! said...

...Because Lord knows I enjoy MY "VD", every year! *snerk*

Miss Kitty Fantastico said...

"Herniated Bowels Day" just made me LOL at work. People are lookin funny. :)

Corianne said...

The way I see it, the first cake can have two meanings. First, it could have been ordered by a super-Christian family to celebrate the Son of God. Oh, and their daughter's birthday.

The second meaning is that Jesus (pronounced Hey-soos) is the Hispanic kid who, say, just won the spelling bee. That Erin has to share a birthday cake with.

Either way, I feel a little sorry for Erin. At least she got cake.

And, yeah, the VD cake killed me.

Not unlike certain VDs would...

anacsadder said...

lol, In the vein of abbreviating Valentine's Day, in high school I knew this guy who worked for the school paper. He had a Valentine's Day survey that he asked some people to fill out. One of the questions was something along the lines of "What's your favorite thing about VD?"

tygrr said...

Happy Day could have been intentional. That's how my friend expresses birthday wishes.

Renee said...

thanks for posting a cake cheering on my dad!! (his name is JESUS, pronounced "hey-soose")

i 2nd Amanda's idea that the VD cake is a "passive aggressive break up cake". it just makes it *that* much better!!!
[insert wicked laughing]

Melanie said...

I read "HB Day" as "HB DOY". I think that makes it way more fun.

WildaBeast said...

I think the second cake could be read as a question, as in "Well Nat, are you having a happy 1st b-day?"

But "HB Day"? Are bakeries accepring orders via text message now or something?

Valerie said...

Well, those of whose parents didn't bother to think about initials when naming us...

regards,
Valerie D
(can you imagine the ration of s4iT I got as a teenager)

Rebecca said...

The VD cake is awesome.

Anonymous said...

What distresses me is when you actually say "B-day" out loud. Like, I need to celebrate that lowly and unloved piece of porcelain?? Poor Nat, Happy 1st B-day? I understand the question mark, alright!

MC from NZ

Slab Girl said...

I am the actual person who wrote "Enjoy Your V.D!" on that ice cream heart shaped cake!! I assure you this was done by Customer Request, not employee laziness!! They were giving it to a male friend and thought it was hilarious, which it is!! I had trouble writing it as I was laughing so hard!! Glad to see it on this site!!

ofsageandsepia said...

What on earth is the "Yay Jesus" all about? I see we've move past the sperm balloons to primary colored condom balloons.

The "Happy VD" reminds me of my days as an ED nurse when we'd make calls essentially notifying people that indeed, it was their happy VD day!! We could've just sent a cake.

Anonymous said...

There are several guys in the area where I live named Jesus -usually Jesus Roberto Romero, Jesus Francisco de Zavala, you get the idea. So perhaps the first cake is supposed to be "Congratulations Jesus" for whatever he did and "Happy Birthday" et cetera.

Silkenray said...

The last cake almost killed my husband. Seriously. He was laughing so hard he choked.

Anonymous said...

All I can say to the last one is.. WTF?!

Roni said...

Wow, I've never been to a blog like this before! Love the pics!

Anna said...

I hope that VD cake comes with some meds.

Anna

Darlene said...

Hilarious!

Jennifer Grigsby said...

I love love LOVE the title of this blog entry!

And, of course, HB stands for "Humongous Bighead"!

Enjoy your VD! *snort* Not touching that with a ten-foot pole, literally!

Heather said...

I laughed out loud!!! I mean LOL. We are hoping to adopt http://helpourdreamscometrue.com/

Jennifer said...

Hmmm... back in college my friends and I referred to Valentine's Day as V.D., mostly because of our chronic single status when the holiday arrived. Still, I can't say that even we would want to see it written on a cake, even in jest!
Obv ths ppl spnd 2 mch tm txtng nd dnt no hw 2 spll rl wrds ne mre.

Anonymous said...

Jesus (probably pronounced HaySoos) is also a very common Hispanic name and is likely not intended to be sacreligious. The Jesus we Anglos identify with is also a derivation of the name, Joshua, and who gets excited about Joshua, much like the John/Jack thing. Yes, the cakes were simply astounding today. Norine

Arlene said...

Oh my I nearly died seeing that last cake.. I read it out loud to my husband who dropped his game controller lol. That cake was absolutely beautiful until you get to the V.D.. man what a way to ruin someone's Valentine's Day. I sure hope it wasn't someone's smarty boyfriend that brought that home. He would need diamonds to fix that lol.

Sarah said...

My grandma always just writes H.G. on all cards she sends. Depending on the situation, I assume it stands for 'hartelijk gefeliciteerd' (Dutch for heartfelt congratulations), wich makes sense, 'hartelijke groeten' (heartfelt greetings), wich also makes sense or 'holijke gerstmis' (herry gistmas) wich doesn't make any sense.

Chaos6267 said...

you know, at first i thought it was for national vermin day abbreviated VD. yes there IS a national vermin day. Oh honey! what a uh... lovely...? cake! hehe... you know how much i love rats!

Anonymous said...

Hilarious! Does anyone else see small sea shells on that one cake? Ick. Hopefully they got washed before being shoved into the --- I mean -- placed on the cake.

Lynn said...

Oh! I can't breath. I mean, I have heard people joke about calling it VD, but seeing it in icing is just too much. My ribs are sore and my children think I have had some sort of laughing fit which I can not explain, but it was worth it.

Anonymous said...

I just have to say, I love your Weasley reference in the title for this post! X-D Fred and George forever!

ROTFLOL, my verification word below is "suprodoo"!!! How fitting!

The Whiz Kid Forte said...

The last cake has my brain playing a 70's Ad Council PSA:

VD is for everybody...

Anonymous said...

Not sure what's worse - VD or B-Day (as in beday)

Randomosity said...

That V.D. cake wasn't an abbreviation for Valentine's Day but really was meant to be Venereal Disease. I gave it to my (now) ex boyfriend after finding out he slept with my best friend a week before Valentine's Day and four days after she confided to me that she had one. He figured it out before too long. I'll never forget it.

*smile*


*Disclaimer: I made that up. The cake was never anywhere near me, far as i know. The situation was just running through my head when i saw the cake. Love it! Abbreviations gone wrong! XD

Anonymous said...

I'm copying the VD cake for my husband for next Valentine's Day!

SyracuseWolvrine said...

Am I the only one that saw "Happy 29th Beth" and started hearing a version of 'Henry VIII' ... "I'm Beth the 29th I am, Beth the 29th I am I am ...."

filidhe@gmail.com said...

I wanna order that for my ex... just to scare the sith outta him. hehehe

Kaybee said...

Oh my. When I saw the last cake, I started shaking with laughter, a strange choking noise coming from my throat. My six-year-old looked at me and said, "Are you okay, Mommy?"
THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS!
Kaybee

Anonymous said...

The HB Day cake could have been intentional. I'm an engineer and we use so many acronyms every day that it's become an inside joke to just write HB Day or even just HBD on Facebook and cards and things...kind of as a way of mocking how many acronyms we use every day. I can totally see them thinking it would be funny to continue the joke in cake form. So that one may have not been the fault of the bakery. Maybe.

Beth's mom said...

Since my daughter's name is Beth and she introduced me to Cake Wrecks, I'd like to recreate the "Happy 29th Beth" cake for her birthday. I think I can do it: heart-shaped chocolate cake, no frosting, white lettering. But I'm puzzled about the red things. Any thought as to what they are?

Haiku Joy said...

All things considered,
I wonder how long this Beth
will hang around here.