The Cake Baby

It's been quite a week [though I think it's longer] here at Casa Smallville. Carlos has been in a deep funk and wouldn't tell me why. One morning, I smelled something burning and my first thought was, I'm having as stroke.

Luckily that wasn't it. I walked into the kitchen and asked Carlos what was burning, and he said, It's just the fire in my soul going out.

I wished it was my stroke.

I asked what was wrong and he couldn't-wouldn't elaborate. Several days went by and there were more snide asides about pitiful existences and days being numbered and so on.

Then it hit me.

His birthday.

Carlos.Does.Not.Like.Birthdays.

He doesn't like the idea of getting older, although, it's really only one of two options, and the only one that doesn't require mortuary visits and crematorium trips. I tried to get him to snap out of it. I suggested he select a restaurant for us to have dinner on Saturday. He suggested Chili's and I hit him in the head with a cartoon frying pan.

Someplace nice, I said.

I dunno, was his response.

So, I opted to choose a place for dinner this Saturday, and he stayed silent, except for the I don't like birthday mutterings. I do wonder if it didn't help that i kept telling people he would be sixty-five. Especially since he many many years from that mark.

Just sayin'.

Then, on Tuesday, the day before his birthday, mind you, he calls me and asks if he's going to have a cake for his birthday! He didn't even want a birthday and now he's hopped up like a buttercream junkie looking to score.

You said you didn't want any cake, that you don't like birthdays.

But I like cakie-cakie.

So, having yesterday off from work, I looked in the cookbook for a simple recipe. I don't bake. At Casa Smallvile, Carlos is the MasterBaker; say it fast, and try not to laugh. I'll demonstrate: Carlos loves to MasterBake. If he could earn a living as a MasterBaker he'd be MasterBaking morning, noon, and night.

I'm done.

I bake him a cake. A simple Carrot Cake. I think it turns out good; Martha would hate it, but then she hates everything since she got out of the slammer. He calls several times during the day to ask about the alleged cake and I repeatedly told him there would be no cake because he never said, until the last minute, that he even wanted a freakin' cake.

I'm beginning to shout like Regis Philbin, and that ain't good.

So, I hid the cake.

He comes home and looks around the kitchen, sniffing like a bloodhound on a pound cake run, and then casts his eyes down. I tell him again, You said no cake! All at once he's ten-years-old and pouting down the hallway, dropping his briefcase, moaning something in Spanish. I try not to laugh.

We eat dinner, and as I'm in the kitchen getting him some more salad, I hear him whistling a melancholy version of, wait for it, For He's Jolly Good Fellow. I almost burst out laughing. Instead I told him he was pathetic and came back with more salad.

After dinner, I cleared the table, and in the kitchen, I took his gifts from atop the refrigerator, and removed the cake from inside it. I had a plan to get him in the kitchen. I would drop something on the floor, shout Damn! and he'd come running...Surprise!

I drop something.

Nothing.

I drop it again.

What's going on in there?

I dropped something.

Oh.

He.Does.Not.Come.In.

I pick up a plastic mug and hold it above my head and toss it to the floor.

Now, he comes in.

To cake and gifts.

That cute lower lip of his shot out faster than you could say, Happy Freaking Birthday You Big Baby!!