Thursday, August 26, 2010

Great Wrecks In Store

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Loyal Henchpersons, it has come to my attention that some of you are now concerned about ordering a cake. You feel there's no hope; that you're doomed to receiving a Wreck no matter what precautions you take. And for some strange reason, I feel a little responsible for this.

Well, good news, cake consumers: I'm here to restore your confidence! That's right: we're going to take a little field trip over to the local grocer's bakery. C'mon.

[pulling into parking lot] Aw, look! That must be the decorator's car! See, now that is an artist who takes his craft seriously.

Don't worry; I'm sure "CACE" is just an acronym.

Or a pun.

Or...something.

Look, the point is, this is a decorator who's not afraid to take "risks" for his art! And if you don't believe me, just look where he parked:

See?

Well, let's head into the store now, shall we?

[heading down main aisle]

Oooh, check it out! There's a sale on...er...wait. What does that say?

Ok, I can see you're getting a little concerned here. And, yes, three of the five words in the product name are misspelled. But, hey, they got "air" and "Febreze" right and those are tough! Besides, I'm sure the bakery employees are much more literate.

In fact, let's get over there; we have a cake to order!

Well, it's nice to know their ingredients may or may not be certifiable. Like I always say, a little mystery adds spice to life! Right? [elbowing ribs] Right?

[arriving at bakery counter] Ah, here we are! Now, let's get that cake ordered!

Hey, where are you going?

Get back over here!

C'mon, I'm sure the cake will be FINE. Don't be such a worry-wart!


Tell you what: I'll tell the nice employee here what we want, and you go grab some candles, ok? Meet you back here in five.


[five minutes later]


Oh, good, you found the candles! So...why don't you look happy?


Ah. Well...on the bright side, I doubt our decorator had anything to do with this! Heheheh - no?

Look, just to prove to you that everything is going to be alright, I got a copy of the order form the baker submitted for us. I'm sure once you look it over, all your concerns will be gone.

Um. We did want to be "Drawed a picture of a Thrown," right?

No?

Well, drat. I guess now we just hope for the best; they said it'd be done in just a few minutes...



A-ha! See? What'd I tell you? Nothing to worry about at ALL.

Oh, quit complaining: a double inscription means double the fun!

And centering is boring.

And teal is kind of like "royal blue." In as much as it's blue. Ish.

And it only looks a little like a shower chair toilet thingy.


And...hey, where are you going? We still have to add the candles! Come back!


Well, Wreckies, I hope this little excursion has helped allay your fears of professional cake ordering. Now go forth, and order cakes!

And maybe bring your cameras. You know, just in case.


Tesha W., Cathy W., Amanda D., Noelle R., Maggie C., Morgan W., & Penske, I guess that order was such a royal pain that it blue right past the wreckerators and had them throne for a loop. So I guess we'll call it a "drawed."
Lauren Borquez said...

I seriously dont know which is more ugly...that dreadful car or hideous cake...they both made me want to cry :(

Emily S. said...

Excellent post. I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by all the misspellings in the world. It's good to be able to laugh at them! :-)

EG said...

Best post ever! Just hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Wow. That car is awesome, although I think the candles are a bit over the top. Heehee.

Bethany said...

I. Love. This post :)

Receptionist Row said...

That was the funniest thing I have seen all day! Well, it is only 9:41am, but still, so funny!!! Oh, wait, did I spell that rite? Ah, good, no silly red squiggly lines under any of my words..That's how to live life, watching out for the squiggly red lines under us.

P. S. How cute is Matt Smith as the new doctor? [just picked up season 5] I wasn't sure he'd pull it off, but he manages well! Spoiler...the last doctor regeneration will have ginger hair! [fingers crossed]

TechyDad said...

I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I order a cake or even walk past the bakery displays, I'm half-hoping to get/see a wreck. Alas, the bakers in my area seem to be annoyingly competent at their job. Either that, or I'm frequenting the right (any by that, I mean wrong) places.

Anonymous said...

bahahahah maybe your best one yet!!!!

Fluffy Cow said...

I want one of those Flood Parking signs.

Sharon said...

Excellent! Thanks for the field trip. And you wonder how these people ever graduated...then I read the spelling of teachers on Facebook and I know!

Sharon's Edible Art

A Girl In Her Kitchen said...

Thanks for the field trip! I feel so much better!

http://agirlinherkitchen.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Very funny. The "Writting" sign was just to much.

Anonymous said...

I'm "writting" this to say thank you for making me laugh - again and again and.....

WV: squalit
What some cakerwreckerators do when writing on a cake, you know - just squalit down and hope the customer doesn't notice.

VeggieT said...

wow, I LOL'd IRL at the birthday candles

Tesha said...

I shouldn't mention this but.... I'm pretty cure I misspelled "case" when I submitted the car photo. But either way.... AHAHAHAHAHA! Love the story, totally funny. =)

WV: suppin

I'm bored, wanna do suppin?

NYCGirl said...

Same here, TechyDad. Crarg, I say!

Anonymous said...

Truly one of my favorite posts! And, I too, am bothered by the misspellings in the world. (I think my favorite was the package of candles, though)

Thanks for bringing the laughter every day! (Except Saturdays. aww)

Melissa K said...

Oh, so happy! Two of my fave blogs (cakewrecks, of course, and the blog of unneccesary quotes) collide. Brilliant story telling!

I must say, though, that the sign for the air freshener has me totally irked. How is the savings "up to" 60 cents? I swear, that is going to be bothering me all day.

Stacey said...

hahahaha!! This post was excellent, I love it. Thank you so much for a daily dose of humor. and cake. :-)

Jules AF said...

I'd totally order from the "writting" person. He/she had good penmanship!

Alison said...

*headdesk*

Really???

*headdesk*

I think I want to stay home for the foreseeable future. Now I'm afraid to go into the grocery store at all, much less the bakery.

Gary said...

Unless my monitor is off, that icing on "Farewell to the Queen" looks more powder-blue than teal to me. Not royal blue, in any case. Next time I want to be Drawed a picture of a Thrown, I'll know to ask to see the icing color in advance, before the baker does the Writting on the cake.

Anonymous said...

Allayed my fears?
Nope.
You've just made my life harder.
Everyone I ever sent here to enjoy the laughter is calling me to do their cake.

Thnaks. Yeah, "rilly".

~~Di

ps - totally love how you find and organize the photos so well in conjunction with your storyline.

wv - harifil -- these signs are harifil portents of the future of the English language.

Anonymous said...

Those providing the 'writting' on these messes are also selling their 'dinning' room sets on craigslist... the 'thrown' — spelling and drawing — were AWESOME!

Anonymous said...

Oh! the other craigslist typo that's reached epidemic proportions is describing things as 'hugh'! Makes me insane!

kayk said...

Erm, "alright" isn't a word. It's "all right."

WV: cousn. I wouldn't give this cake to my least-favorite cousn.

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Bonjour Kayk,

The word "alright" has been in use since the 19th century and is an accepted merging of the words "all" and "right." Though some folks still object to its usage. Which is strange since "although" and "altogether" are equally acceptable conjunctions and there doesn't seem to be any issue with them.

So there.

john

ps. You spelled "cake" wrong.

;)

Jade said...

Actually, it's only 3 out of 5 words spelled incorrectly on the air freshener ad; "Febreze" is the correct spelling of the brand name. How they managed to get that right and mangle the rest is beyond me. :)

TJ said...

I feel it's my civic duty to inform you that "Febreze" is the correct spelling of that particular brand. Even though it may seem to be a better portmanteau of "February" and "Breeze" than "Fabric" and "Breeze."

LeftWingLock said...

And I thought the "garadge sale" sign we drove past last weekend was bad...

ErinMSW said...

Ha! That kind of reminds me of this book, which the grammar ogre in me is absolutely DYING to read!!! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129086941

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Jade and TJ,

Boops. You are absolutely right. And apparently, what looks like poor spelling is really marketing genius.

Thanks for watching our proverbial backs.

john

Molly Malone said...

All that misspelling makes my skin crawl! I don't think I will ever order a cake again - I think I'll just get a can of spam and put a candle on it...

sundevils1 said...

To go with everything else, I guess it's appropriate that the bottom edge of the cake was crooked too.

Aislinn said...

I can't believe how many signs I see misspelled... I think it was in JFK airport that I saw a sign for the "Baggagge Claim"

Donna said...

How sad is it when all I asked of for a birthday cake was a certifiable Wreck???

Thanks for the laughs and the hopes that one day I may get a wreck of my very own!

Anonymous said...

O_O; That "throne" looks more like the electric chair from the Green Mile. Even John Coffey couldn't heal this mess; it's terminal.

Unknown said...

As usual, I'm speechless by the sheer amount of wreckitude. Wow. I'm surprised they didn't get a baseball cake or something with those sketchy directions.

OR a cake with just those words on it. And nothing else. Or perhaps just the word 'THROWN'. Cakewrecks has taught me that NOTHING is impossible.

Ashlee said...

Haha! For some reason I thought of THIS
as I was reading this post. Those of you who get annoyed by misspellings as much as I do should enjoy it. They even have a book!

Anonymous said...

To be fair, that cake was done in whipped icing (see, it was circled on the order form!) and it's nearly impossible to get a dark color like royal blue in whipped icing. The icing just doesn't like to take that much coloring without going wet and flat and bitter.

... but the rest, totally true. -.-

mimi said...

HBPPY

HBPPY

My daughter just started Kindergarten. And she knows what's wrong with that. And CACE.

WV: WAXED what? A real word for a wv? What's this world coming to?

Val said...

I ordered a cake from the grocery store for my birthday. I was a little afraid to do so. I am picking it up on Saturday. I must admit that I want it to look nice, but I also want to be able to send you blog fodder. We will see how things go!

lynn bowes said...

I so enjoy this site! Now y'all need to check out http://unnecessaryquotes.com for some hilarious commentary on the overuse of "quotation" "marks". I'll never get any work done around here . . . =-D

The Dream Police Person! said...

I love this post - maybe even one of your best ones yet! But on the other hand, oh god help us all...

mrBallistic said...

even better... the regence ad matches the cake perfectly.

Tesha said...

.... JEEZ! I did it again! Ok, that's it. I am completely unable to spell "cace" without triple checking it and accidentally changing it to an actual word!! lol

WV: welymen

Welymel... when "Happy Falker Satherhood" just doesn't cut it!

Lisa said...

This makes me glad that my grocery bakery sells slices of cake, no writing necessary.

Karla said...

One of the best posts EVER!

Alisa said...

Love it...but why would anyone want a picture of a car going through an automated car wash on their cake? Oh, it's a throne. Right. Been a long time since you lot had a royal family, I guess!

Anonymous said...

The flood zone parking was only a "risk" when someone left the cake car out in the rain... Now just try to get that song out of your head!

Anonymous said...

So frickin' funny!!

Chrispy said...

When in doubt (and one should always be in doubt), it's best to go with "all right" instead of "alright". Just sayin'.

Julie said...

AWESOME post! A fantastic witty narrative, well-illustrated with hideous examples to make the skin crawl. A field trip tour-de-force!

Lulu said...

The order form is what hit me the most. What sort of self-respecting employer hires such cretins?!

Amber said...

This reminds me of a guy who used to travel the country with his "typo correction kit" and fix spelling and grammar errors whenever he found them. Here's a link.

Bree said...

I bought some balloon shaped candles for a cake I'm making Saturday. And yes, all the letters are there!

Amy said...

Excellent post -- funny and sad all at the same time. I shudder at the misspellings and grammatical errors that are *everywhere* these days! Less/fewer, it's/its, "let Jim and I know" (ugh, ugh, UGH!), and my personal pet peeve, losing/loosing (WHY have people suddenly started spelling "lose" with two "o"s?)

But as awesome as the post was, I have to agree with the others on "alright."
http://americaneditor.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/on-words-alright-and-all-right/

Despite that, you guys are still all right!! ;)

Charles said...

When I was working a the Grand Canyon, one of the cafeterias had a large wooden sign (set high enough that most people never noticed it) pointing the way to the various serving stations. Included was a sign directing people to the "Deserts." Interestingly enough, if you went far enough in the direction the arrow pointed, leaving the building, going off the pavement, and making your way down various forest roads, you would in fact find yourself exiting the pine forest and entering the high-altitude desert.

WV: trotes
If these people bake as badly as they decorate, I'd be worried about coming down with a case of the trotes.

Claire and Jay McBride said...

I am sad that you didn't head over after ordering your cake to get a tattoo where fired wreckarators find employment misspelling words in tattoos. I sent you a link of some doozie tattoos!

LoveDogsNHockey said...

OMG. "They want to be Drawed a picture of Thrown" is horrific. And I thought my co-workers were bad. My boss and I were just discussing how weird it is that the manager can spell words like refrigerator, but then spell afraid as afrade. My boss is a big fan of random quotation marks though and it drives me up the wall!

Goob said...

what's with the quotation fingers? Its like I'm only capable of "ironic" parking at my own risk!

Dan Pearce said...

That car is so funny. And seriously, how lucky for them to have misspelled that. Nobody would have ever appreciated the 40+ hours that probably went into that thing.

Single Dad Laughing

Brooke said...

John (the hubby of Jen),
In regards to your comment at 11:54: you're my hero. That is all.

Unknown said...

Being that I would consider that first picture to be of an art car, that "CACE" is most likely the acronym of the Central Art Car Exhibit http://www.centralartcarexhibit.com/ and was supposed to be that way as an inside joke.

Desert Rubble said...

OMG What a train wreck, seriously, what are they thinking....except that it would be good for a laugh or two ;P

Babs said...

The candles were a "Best Buy." Better get two! This post was great!

of sage and sepia said...

I fear for the future of the human race! Not sure which is funnier - my favorite rant-subject, the "random" use of quotation "marks" or, Sacre Bleu, "drawed a throwen'. DRAWED ? DRAWED ?? And what, pray tell, is a "throwen"??
These should be punishable offenses, no bail, no time off for good behavior, no release until the cake-con can pass a basic English writing and spelling test. I'm just saying!! (Actually, I'm just "writting!)

Anonymous said...

Hey! who leftleft the seat up on my royal 'thrown!'

Anonymous said...

ohhhhkkkaaayy

Jessica said...

great post! I had to order my first cakes ever last year for a wedding shower and a bachelorette pary. I was SO scared to order it after being a regular on this website. It turned out ok.

rhonda said...

Ordering a cake from a grocery store is not the same as ordering a professional cake. If you want a decent cake then you don't go to the grocery store, it's just common sense.

Anonymous said...

Geez it looks like an electric chair.

Anonymous said...

Rhonda, if you check this site out frequently, you'll find that ordering a cake from a bakery does NOT guarantee ANYthing.

It has nothing to do with common sense at all. Just sayin'.

~~Di

wv - fartne -- can't come up with a sentence, but I just couldn't pass up posting it.

Tova said...

"They want to be drawed a picture of a thrown."

BWUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA



and what a fail that febreze sign was!!!! Honestly, have they NO editing??

Arlene said...

Hides under bed refusing to ever come out to order a cake from that bakery lol. Not even if I had someone go in with me.. I would stay in the car and make them deal with the inevitable wreck to come. Then eat it merrily seeing as I didn't pay for it lol.

Anonymous said...

I work at a grocery store and after the bakery staff leave for the night, it often falls on me to write on cakes for people who, for some reason, need a personalized cake at 11pm.

Because of this site, I always make the customer write what they want on the cake, and then confirm the spelling with them. "Happy birthday Adam?" Write it down. "Congrats, Liz?" Here's a pen. They look at me like I'm incurably thick, but I know better!

Craig said...

I think a new blog is in order: 'World Wrecks'.

#1 I buy the acronym theory. The car looks like someone was washing it and decided to skip the rinse in order to be 'green'.

#2 To the person who created the sign, the risk is purely hypothetical, thus they can't really be blamed for not caring. "Here's your sign."

#3 An unmitigated disaster. The spelling errors rather overshadow the math problem, so here goes... "Save up to 60 cents", then the ever-popular small print advises, "when you buy..." followed by some number I can't decipher. But the last time I checked, $3.59 - $2.99 = $0.60. So the sign appears to suggest that the 'air freshners' are an effective $2.99 each when the mandated quantity is purchased, but that makes the total saving greater than 60 cents. Worse, if you buy just one freshner short of the quota, you're still paying the 'low price everyday' of $3.59, thus no savings. I mean, 'saving' -- 'savings' is what people used to have in the bank. I think it's time to get the Pentagon on the phone and call in a tactical *headdesk* strike -- the headdesk that is available to civilians just won't do it.

#5 I originally thought the sign said, "Writhing on cakes $200". Perhaps this is the "erotic bakery" spoken of by Scott (of 'Fireman Cake' and Basic Instructions fame).

#7 In 'Sling Blade II -- The Final Reckoning', Karl is released from prison and is hired by a bakery... I don't know if Jeff Foxworthy reads this blog, but I can picture him reading that order form and laughing for an hour.

MissNay said...

This was an epic post.

Anonymous said...

AHHH!

My brain is melting from the onslaught of error!

Classic Steve said...

Please tell me these aren't all from the same place.

Bryan said...

That teal is the closest they're getting to royal blue since they ordered their "thrown" in whipped icing! :P

wv: ookahso
These wreckorators are some definite Ookahsos!

MamaBear said...

everything is going to be "alright"? seriously, if you're making a post about misspellings, you really have to double- and triple-check YOUR grammar and spelling. oops!

Tesha said...

I hit the comment button by mistake, but with a WV like "shuse" I had to share....

Pikachu I shuse you!!!!

Anne-Marie said...

Jen, you and your crew have OUTDONE yourselves this week. Fabulous commentaries and storylines - I'm in awe of your creativity and writing skills.

Keep up the fabulous work!

WV: Chant - I will chant in my best Wayne's World imitation: "We're not worthy, we're not worthy!".

Isabella said...

Am I the only one that is more disturbed by the cake order than the cake?

Unknown said...

I love your stuff, but I've got to tell you, I don't think I've laughed so hard in a very, very long time!!! One of my cats became very concerned, and came up in my lap, just to check and make sure I was ok! :) Bless you, bless you!!!

Susan

Carly said...

My God those are cool! Im SO gonna follow you...I wish I had discovered this blog after we made my moms birthday cake! It was "a beautiful mess" full of calories and love...you would have loved it.
BTW
I have a blog too....its kinda like an online journal. its everythingcarly.blogspot.com. sorry, just tryen to get myself out there. :)

Sylvia said...

Oh dear...it is a sad day when they start manufacturacting happy birthday stuff that is spelt incorrectly. that has to be the lowest of the low!