Tuesday, September 14, 2010

So Hard to Say Goodbye

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

"Hi, bakery? I'd like to order a blue and white cake that says 'Bon Voyage, Charlie."


"Well, that's not exactly right. There's a 'V' in 'Bon Voyage.' But it's no problem. I can wait for the corrections to be made."


"Uhh.... well, I see that you've thrown a 'V' in there, but it's still not correct. 'Voyage' is spelled 'V-O-Y-A-G-E.' And his name is not Brian. Again, just a simple blue and white cake."

"Well, you finally spelled 'Bon Voyage' right, but maybe I haven't made myself totally clear. I don't want any drawings. What is... is that a bleeding cauliflower? Listen, I just want a plain white cake. In blue icing, I want 'Bon Voyage, Charlie.' Nothing else. Plain. Simple."


*sigh* "I appreciate your enthusiasm on this try, but it's still wrong. Please, just blue writing on a white cake. 'Bon Voyage, Charlie.' No extra colours. Just the writing. PLEASE."

"I don't even know who that guy is."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"We're not having much luck here. Let's just forget 'Bon Voyage' all together. Can you please just write 'Goodbye!' on a plain cake?"

"I'll take it."


On behalf of Randi H., Melissa S., Dennis W., Lindsay A., Valerie S., Lauren L., and Liz- we genuinely wish Charlie good luck on his trip. May there be no bleeding cauliflower on his flight.
Anonymous said...

I thought it was a bleeding cotton boll myself...

Unknown said...

What's up with all those cakes with voyage starting with a B!

Tricia L said...

Now, see, I've never seen "voyage" misspelled with a B. Yet you found not one but two spelled "boyage". Same bakery?

I'll wait for the nerds to comment so I can find out what that bleeding cauliflower/cotton boll/football mum thing is. A Star Trek/Star Wars/Indiana Jones theme cauliflower?

And I'd take the sprinkles cake, even misspelled. It's pretty.

Donna said...

Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action" cake is actually kind of geeky-cool...if someone hadn't defaced it with the horrid red writing! One of my favorite episodes, aside from the tribbles. Wait! Hold the presses! THAT'S A BLEEDING TRIBBLE!!!

Starry said...

Has someone been reading 27b/6 cos you sound a lot like the cat lady!

http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

Love you (And 27B/6 actually) lots!

tiny purple elephant said...

that was a really colourful and busy cake!

on another note, why cant the bakeries just post a huge sign with the correct spelling of popular phrases...

Jules AF said...

Maybe "Bon Boyage" was supposed to be a pun of some kind?

Dazee Dreamer said...

hahahah, "boyage". That crackes me up

Rafael said...

Notice the "Bon Voyge" on that red/blue/yellow flowers cake. :P

M said...

I think the bleeding cottonball has to do with the episode where Kirk passed off Spock's ears by saying he got his head stuck in a cotton-picker as a child. I can't remember if taht was A Piece of the Action or The City on the Edge of Forever.

...I need to go buy lots of girly things like shoes and purses and superfluous scented lotions to reassert my femininity.

Missy said...

Okay - I can settle the bleeding cauliflower controversy.

It is a flying piece of cotton from the Tinkerbell movie. She makes a balloon out of cotton using her pixie dust to fly over Neverland to find the magic mirror to make a wish and get back her broken moonstone for her septor before the Autumn Revelry. http://cityguideny.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=19215

What? I have a two year old.

Jamie said...

I suspect we need to don 3D glasses to view the fourth cake down properly.

Anonymous said...

"Bon Boyage." Hmm, since "bon" is good, then are they wishing someone to have a good time in their boy ages? (Like, before they become a teenager?) Or more saying that they have good masculinity?

Roo said...

Did anyone else see MEL B's show on Style the other night? Her husband order a cake for her daughter's graduation and told them that he wanted "PHOENIX" in the middle. What they got was "PHOENIX IN THE MIDDLE." I immediately thought of Cake Wrecks!

Murphy Jacobs said...

Bleeding cauliflower does not concern me. What is that black and green thing on the last cake? THAT concerns me.

Renee H. said...

"Bon Boyage"?

sounds like a well-wishing for someone going on a "Find A Hubby" cruise! ;)

slowdown said...

The trouble with tribbles is that they bleed profusely, when shot by Al Capone.

staxia said...

holy cow! that's THREE that spell it BOYAGE... I don't know if you wanna talk about what sort of cruise that might be..

and the one spelled Voyge-- the multicolored one, it also looks like it's 3D!! Like one of those magic eye pictures.. it's scaring me quite a bit, actually!

Anonymous said...

1) did cake #4 come w/ 3d glasses?

2) i am pretty sure a plain blue & white cake w/ "Bon Boyage" is what they got George Reckers before his trip last spring

Amanda Mac said...

Perhaps the bleeding cauliflower was an attempt at the cover of the Twilight book - you know, the one with the flower dipped in blood?

What that has to do with Star Trek and machine guns, I'm not sure... but it's my best guess. :)

BarbW said...

You know, I think Donna is right, the Star Trek cake does look like it's supposed to represent the classic episode "A Piece of the Action." At first I couldn't figure out what was up with the bleeding cotton ball, but maybe it's supposed to be a carnation, like the gangsters wore on their lapels. The bleeding is a bit much, since the show was back in the 60's and they didn't show much blood, but there was a fair amount of mowing guys down with tommy guns.

The horrible red writing really wrecks what otherwise is a kind of cool cake.

John said...

But "A Piece of the Action" doesn't feature tribbles, cauliflower or cotton balls, right? Check.

See, if you stare hard (until your eyes dry out and everything gets blurry) it kind of looks like a cloudy planet, and the green thing is a Romulan warbird firing plasma weapons. Try squinting. And tilting your head to the side. and drinking. Still not seeing it? Well, at least you have an excuse for drinking.

The recipient of this cake is just lucky the wreckerator didn't try to design "A Pizza Reaction".

Anonymous said...

Pretty sure that was supposed to be a cotton plant with blood dripping off it. I don't really get the connection with the jumbled mess of pics, but I do think that's what that was.

Mary Connealy said...

I read these everyday and consider stealing them and putting them on my own blog. I'd include a link to your blog of course.

But then the people who read MY blog would find YOUR blog and they'd never come back to me.

In fact, I think that's how I found you, I clicked on some link somewhere and never went back to where ever that was.

Thank you for allowing me to share the mind games I have to live with everyday.

Anonymous said...

"I'll take it." When I read THAT line under THAT cake . . . omigad I'm still cracking up! I'm gonna laugh about that all day. Thank you SO much!

deb said...

Bon "Boyage" - good lord! Don't you think you might wonder what on earth "boyage" means and CHECK??!!

And what are the black blobs on the "Bon Boyage, Brian" cake??

I snorted out my coffee about the "bleeding cauliflower"!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I was thinking cotton ball, too. The sad thing was I actually found myself spending like 10 minutes trying to figure out if it was some sort of picture rebus--"hmmm, trek-gun cotton-hat. No, ship-gun boll-hat. Naw . . ." before realizing that I was completely wasting my time.

Unknown said...

It's a shame about the bleeding cauliflower (or whatever the heck that is); the Enterprise and the Starfleet logo are actually pretty good!

The rest...0_o

And black icing should be outlawed. FOREVER.

Gary said...

See, "Boyage" is what a young fellow has in between infancy and adulthood, so for somebody's third birthday, you could wish him a "Bon Boyage."


Actually, I suspect that the "Boyage" cakes were decorated by people whose native language is Spanish. In Spanish, "b" and "v" represent the same sound, so Spanish speakers often confuse the two letters when they write, especially if it's an unfamiliar word. "Bon voyage" in Spanish is "Buen Viaje," by the way (or, I guess you could write it "Vuen Biaje," although I've never seen it that way.


WV: peristed. No matter how many times the baker tried, spelling errors peristed.

anotherJuli said...

Here are some definitions for "boyage":

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boyage

WV: beddudar...My Cake Wreck is beddudar than yours!

I mean come on, really? said...

And people wonder why our high school kids have so much trouble with standardized tests...makes me want to break out the flash cards for my three year old and start working on vocabulary!

wv atstrac = a cake so confusing in meaning it is beyond abstract. Like yesterday's "bear" (and the quotation marks are totally justified!).

NYCGirl said...

Where is Mike GOING?

Anonymous said...

By the time I got to the last one, I was so spell-shocked that I didn't even notice it said "goodbay."

@Rafael: I notice that. That makes it sound Yiddish. Oy, bon voygeh!

Anonymous said...

ROFLPMP!!

Ok, now that I can breathe...

A bleedin' cotton boll?? Really?? I don't even want to go there.

Seriously, the 'boyage' or 'voyge' are bad enough, but what the heck is with the black flowers?

It's a good thing I check this blog at home, by myself, all alone. Otherwise, people might think I was a bit crazy laughing at my screen. Oops, too late.

Thanks for all the good times. And bleedin' cotton bolls.

Poor Spock.

~~Di

wv - artozy -- stop getting so blamed artozy with the cake already!! White, blue icing - Bon Voyage, already!

Nekussa said...

I agree with "M" -- in "A Piece of the Action" Spock's pointed ears are passed off as being the result of an accident with a cotton picking machine. I think that really is a bleeding cotton ball!

Lance Bauer said...

If you put on those red and blue 3D glasses the fourth cake comes out right at you. B)

Anonymous said...

My guess is the decorators who wrote "Boyage" were native Spanish speakers. "V" is pronounced like "B" in Spanish. Or the person ordering the cake was a native Spanish speaker and the decorator was just giving them what they asked for!

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh, bleeding cauliflower is exactly what I thought when I saw that cake! I was going to call it as such in the comments. It pleases me that I had the same thought as someone so witty!

Kate said...

I think it's a cotton ball, but I don't think that makes any more sense at all. Whatsoever.

http://arguingwithadoughnut.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I gotta tell you, I started to order a cake over the phone about a year ago after I started reading Cake Wrecks and I wanted "Bon Voyage" on it. I quite literally had nearly the same phone conversation and after the third attempt, I had a vision of this cake at the top of your post the next week. I gave up and ordered "Good Job." Maybe I don't really deserve to read Cake Wrecks. ;)

Liesl said...

OMG, this totally reminds me of the last episode of "Will and Grace"
Jack is in a TV show called "The Badge" so Karen has a huge posted made for him. It comes back saying the Vadge. Karen says, "hhhmmm, maybe I should have said 'b' as in boy instead of 'b' as in bagina."
LOL

Morgi said...

The trim on the first cake appears to be airbrushed blue. Are they really lazy enough to not tint their frosting?

(WV: insidebt. The bakery who employs all these wreckerators will soon be insidebt.)

Anonymous said...

With commentary that good, I forget about the hideous cakes. Well done!

WV: solikliz - Oh, I can't even go there.

Andygirl said...

what the hail was that second one? Star Trek meets the Godfather meets The Color Purple?

Ang said...

Ok,here is my theory on the "Bon Boyage" cakes. The sound of "b" and "v" is very similar in languages like Tagalog and Spanish. I'm guessing the common thread that accounts for the same mistake being made multiple times is that the decorators have one of these or similar languages as their first language.

Isabella said...

I seriously want to look at the blue and red one (with sprinkles!) with 3d glasses on. I think it would only add to the terror.

E said...

@ Starry, I checked out that link and I almost had Coke (the soda, not the powder) coming through my nose. Thanks for posting. And thanks CQ for the great post today. I needed the laugh after dealing with my H.O.A.

Hmmm, maybe I should try a cake letter (like the cake invoice) when dealing with them, the cake might soften the blow of my stinging sarcasm...

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm French Canadian and as far has I know "boyage" doesn't mean anything. It only make me think of "boyeau" that you can translate by "guts, entrails"... Yummy!

Urband Dictionary offer this explanation:

"Visit to see a boyfriend or fling, requiring plane, train or automobile, and therefore more time and effort intensive than the average booty call.

As she left for the airport for a weekend of passion with her 'sometimes' man in Chicago, her friends wished her a 'bon boyage!'"

Jillian said...

I hate to state the obvious, but the 'b/v' confusion was probably made by a native Spanish speaker. They often pronounce the letter 'V' as if it were a 'B'.


But funny still that the owner, cashier, delivery person, etc. all let that slip by.

Anonymous said...

All I have to say is 'Bleeding Cauliflower Controversy' would make a good name for a rock band.

And I'm still waiting for an answer ...

EllenC said...

I'm with Morgi - thank goodness someone said it. Seriously? Airbrushing the trim?

Anonymous said...

I can think of quite a few people for whom "Boyage" would be fun....? not minor boyage, but consentual boyage....uh, oh...

oh, and the cauliflower, perhaps is cotton? cottonpickin' hat wearin' shootin' at the cap'n? no?

These are too great!!

Becca said...

Okay, that comment about trying to decipher the bleeding cotton boll as a rebus makes me wonder......Jen? Do people actually make Rebus cakes?? Future post, pretty please? Share them!

destinie said...

on the cake with a picture of some guy is that at the chalmette batlefield!?!

Melinda said...

C'mon, that third cake is so obvious. Mike is joining Starfleet and will be posted on the Enterprise. He and Indiana Jones have been chosen to head up a mission against the vicious natives of the planet Cottonfield. Using machine guns, they plan to squelch the Cottonfieldians' insidious plan to substitute all of our cotton underwear with nylon. Seriously...nobody else got that?

Anonymous said...

Too bad the decorators couldn't spell voyage right on Paul and Michael's cakes, aside from that they're quite lovely.

"Anonymous...with 'quotation marks' " said...

I want to believe that the original "Bon Boyage Charlie" cake might have been an intentional misspelling for someone who is expecting a son (emphasis on the 'want to').

"Goodbay Playre" could have been a prop from 'The Wire.'

wv- feczates: Spanish for chocolate icing poo-blobs.

Anonymous said...

Ahem *pushes up her thick nerd glasses* People in previous comments suggested Spanish and Tagalog as the wreckator's native language, but I think it could easily happen to a native English speaker as well - I happened to find this site, where it is explained better than I could :)
http://www.pronuncian.com/podcast.aspx?Episode=111
Basically, /b/ and /v/ are not that different, phonetically; think about the word play 'very berry', 'berry good', and other variations.

Hannah said...

I swear on the first one I didn't even notice "Boyage".

JRam said...

I laughed hard. Comedy gold!

Unknown said...

[snorting my drink] That was positively hilarious. Cake Wrecks is the best! Boyage - oh my gosh, the illiteracy! [more laughing] Thanks for making my day; I really needed a laugh!

Sandy C/SoFla said...

I figured out what the bleeding cotton ball is... it's supposed to be a white carnation with blood dripping off it. Get it?

Sandy

mystic_eye_cda said...

*Someone* has to know what the bleeding cauliflower was supposed to be? Right?

Lisa H said...

The "Bon Boyage" reminds me of my students who come out of gym class telling me they played "bollyball" today. You know, that game where they hit the back back and forth over a net.

Brie said...

I said it on FB, but i'll repeat it here...
Boyage = cleavage with man boobs.

the Chacogirl said...

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Donna said...

John, John, John...*shaking head*...I can't possibly drink that much on a work night...but please warn us if you ever do "A Pizza Reaction" post with pictures. UGH!

WV: excate - a word meaning to flee, as in "The excate prisoner was caught posing as the local wreckreator."

tiny purple elephant said...

did the 2nd cake have BLACK roses???????

Anonymous said...

Urban Dictionary gives this as one meaning for "boyage":
Visit to see a boyfriend or fling, requiring plane, train or automobile, and therefore more time and effort intensive than the average boo*y call.

Anonymous said...

2nd & last cake both have blackroses/flowers on the green leaves. Does that mean "Bob Voiage" and "Goodbay" really mean 'good riddance'?

Anonymous said...

Who the H#E$%^ are they hiring at these bakeries

Unknown said...

I'm actually happy to see these cakes. When I read the title, I was afraid you were announcing that you were having to "retire" the blog. I was more than a bit worried.

*Sigh*

Thank goodness is was just more cake drama.

wv- glartive. What I imagine a lot of us would have been like towards you if you HAD announced such a tragedy.

Lee said...

@Melinda: My first thoughts on that third cake was that it obviously had to be an indiana jones x star trek crossover. I'm afraid I didn't pick up on the cotton plot though ;)

Barbara Anne said...

Anonymous said... All I have to say is 'Bleeding Cauliflower Controversy' would make a good name for a rock band.


now THAT'S funny!! paying for a professionally decorated cake & getting one of these? not so much.

Sarah said...

Black roses twice was too creepy so I looked it up quick: according to Wikipedia (first place I look when I'm lazy), black roses symbolize "death, hatred, revenge, sorrow or mourning. It can also be used when conveying a farewell." Huh. Still creepy. As in farewell-we-are-sending-you-to-your-doom creepy.

Arlene said...

Hmm I guess in the wreckerators world voyage is boyage.. can't seem to figure out why they have such a hard time with that word. That bleeding cauliflower looks like a bridal bouquet gone bad otherwise that cake was ok lol my hubby would have loved the Star Trek stuff on it. I wonder if anyone told the wreckerators to get a dictionary if they don't know how to spell a word lol. Or just Google it.. if they can.

Craig said...

#2 Are those prunes?! What sort of 'voiage' is Brian being sent on, anyway?

#3 I think it is a rebus. The decorator did a decent job on the various symbols, actually. How many wreckerators would get the Enterprise right without resorting to flotsam? As to what the rebus says...? Someone knows the story on this cake. How can they be induced to come forward?

Rebus could be a way to get messages onto cakes without worrying about spelling, parsing errors, strange punctuation, etc. though it does rely heavily on the artistic ability of the person with the icing bag. In the CW universe, that's a real craps shoot.

#4 'Bon Voyge' from Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Cakes. Now where did I put those Bonine tablets?

#5 Extraneous quotation marks (the left ones are right on the border of the print) and misspelling. What more could Paul want?

#7 "Good Bay Playre"? For someone with the Packers, perhaps? And again with the prunes. Oy!

It's hard to get too worked up about 'bon boyage' when there are so many variations on 'voila', most of them phonetic. No wonder the French are snooty toward us. Not that one is likely to see 'voila' on a cake, but then, CW has opened up whole new vistas of things I never thought I'd see...

shikishinobi said...

Kind of like the old 'Who's on first base" joke. I like it. Too bad you can't get something simple when they are so inclined to over-compensate for their previous short-comings. By the end of the day, taking what you can get seems like a good idea.

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John said...

@M: Spock was said to have caught his ears in a rice-picker in "City on the Edge of Forever." (I remembered the crop but not the episode.)

Anonymous said...

As a Trekkie, I am loving that cake with the Enterprise and Star Fleet insignia on it!

Anonymous said...

Why is "color" spelled "colour"? Is Jen a Brit?

Bunnymuffin said...

Came into the comments just to suggest that everyone find some 3D glasses for the Technicolor cake. It totally pops! Back to trying to catch up now.

Anonymous said...

Nope, Spock's ears were passed off as a mechanical RICE picker. The bleeding doohickey is definitely a lapel carnation. :-)

Jonathan said...

I can't believe they have that reference on that cake. The "bleeding cauliflower" is from a famous scene inspaghetti western history. It was a white carnation from the final shoot out in Sergio Corbucci's The Mercenary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PykHgkq8-Q

Anonymous said...

Goodbay? Reeeeeealy?

best download software said...

I suspect we need to don 3D glasses to view the fourth best download software cake down properly.

amandapearl2 said...

Oh my gosh, I loled at work....I need to not be looking at cake wrecks....