cupcakes, part II

My colleagues/friends Cheryl, Katherine, and I have a routine on Tuesdays after we eat lunch together: we eat cookies. Yummers. This week we were really full from the pizza, and we skipped going to the Garlic Press because it was in the opposite direction. But when we passed the new Medici bakery, Cheryl let out a little whine and pointed to the door, so we went in.

The first thing that caught our eyes was a row of BEAUTIFUL cupcakes decorated to look like sunflowers. The yellow frosting was expertly applied to look like leaves, and there were tiny chocolate chips in the middle made to look like the brown center of a sunflower. Have I mentioned that they were beautiful? I wish I'd taken a picture of them.

Me, to the person behind the counter: Are they muffins or cupcakes?

She: They're chocolate cupcakes.

We three, collectively: Yummmmm.

We decided to share one because they were HUGE and, well, they were three bucks a piece. Cheryl treated.

We walked back to school gawking at it in its to-go container. I kept saying how I wanted to just stick my finger in that frosting and do a big swish across the top. I restrained myself until we got back to our offices. Katherine opened the container and I stuck my finger in. The frosting was hard. I couldn't do a big swish. I pushed at it and some frosting stuck to my finger. I put it to my lips. "It tastes like...nothing."

Cheryl: WHAT?

She takes a swish and agrees that it tastes like nothing.

I run down the hall for a potty break (as I am wont to do at the most interesting times) and when I come back, Katherine has taken a bite out of it. "It practically broke my fork," she said.

It was not a chocolate cupcake. It was a burnt, hard yellow cupcake and did I mention that it was hard. I lifted the entire thing with my fork and no crumbs fell on my desk.

We were pissed. Katherine takes a bite of the chocolate chips in the middle and declares that they are not semi-sweet; they're BAKING chocolate.

We begin imagining possible reasons why it could be so bad. The bakers had to practice making sunflowers for some competition they'd be entering. Or they had LOTS of yellow "frosting" left and they had to do something with it, so why not put it on the burnt yellow cupcakes?

In the midst of all this, I say, "If my honey had bought something that he thought was a chocolate cupcake and he got this, he would've had a little breakdown."

Cheryl decides she's gonna call them and tell them how horrible it was. We would've returned it, but we all had things we had to do soon and it was a little bit of a walk. So Cheryl calls and says, "I was just in there and I bought one of those sunflower cupcakes and I wanted to tell you that it's....terrible." I'm in the background, reminding her to tell them it's hard as a rock and don't forget about the chocolate chips and the frosting had no taste. I'm helpful that way.

She's listening to the person on the other end and says, "Oh, I seeeeee." She hangs up and tells us she's the SECOND PERSON who's called today to complain about the cupcakes. They're taking them out of the case.

And I'm left wondering why they left them in the case after the first person complained. And even more, what kind of person calls to complain about a cupcake? Not just us, evidently.

It was, after all, a $3 cupcake. That's almost a gallon of gas!