With my daughter turning five this year, Nadia and I decided to have a birthday party at the house. Usually, I just combine her birthday celebration with our Christmas celebration because her out of state relatives only come for the weekend. This year, we decided to have a separate party at the house because she was reaching a milestone.

We selected December 19th because it was the last weekend before her birthday, and that day seemed to work for all of those involved. After we finalized plans and my daughter chose a Hello Kitty theme, we began planning the party. We picked up decorations and invitations, and started getting the house in order.
 
About three weeks before our party, we celebrated my sister’s birthday at our house. For that, I ordered a cake from a local bakery called Patisserie Lille. It was a very simple cake; it was to be a buttercream-frosted, yellow, quarter-sheet cake.
 
When I received the cake, everything looked good… emphasis on looked. But, the frosting ended up tasting awful. It tasted more like Crisco than buttercream. So, I never heard the end of it from my dad and sister. So, this time, I wanted to get a better-tasting cake.
 
I ended up going to Walmart for the cake because northern Virginia, at least in the Herndon area, there aren’t many local bakeries. As a matter of fact, Patisserie Lille was the only one I found that made cakes.
 
Walmart, much like many other bakeries, required 48 hours notice for a cake. So, the Thursday before the party, I put my order in. It was a half-sheet, buttercream-frosted, chocolate, Hello Kitty cake. The cake decorator who took my order said it was the most intricate kid’s cake they had. Out of all of the Hello Kitty cakes they had, this one looked best.

He informed me he would be making the cake himself, and that I could pick it up Saturday at 1 p.m. This would work, as the party was starting at 2 p.m.

After ordering the cake, the weather reports started calling for a huge snowstorm. I took a “believe it when I see it” stance, but was aware that we might have to reschedule the party.
 
Nadia suggested pushing the party back to Sunday, if the snow prevented us from having it on Saturday. Everyone who was coming to the party said that Sunday worked.
 
So, Saturday morning I saw that we already had about 10 inches of snow, and decided to reschedule. I called Walmart’s bakery department and let them know I would be picking the cake up Sunday morning. The person told me that was fine.

On Sunday morning, after shoveling, my father and I headed to Walmart to get the cake and some last minute things for the party. I decided to pick up the cake last because I didn’t want anything to happen to it, and I didn’t want to lug a half-sheet cake around the store.
 
After picking up everything on the list, we headed over to the bakery counter. I stood there for roughly four minutes before I was acknowledged by one of the girls behind the counter. I’m not entirely sure what was so pressing that they couldn’t stop what they were doing, but four minutes is a long time to stand and wait to be acknowledged for something.

When the younger girl finally did acknowledge me, I told her that I ordered a cake for my daughter’s birthday. I told her my name, the name on the cake, and the type of cake. She looked at me with one of the blankest stares I have ever seen in my life.
 
I repeated my name, and said that it was a half-sheet birthday cake. After standing there with a blank stare again, she turned and headed to the back, presumably to look for my cake. After a minute or so, she came back, looking confused, and asked if there was another name it would be under. Um, no.
 
I told her who took my order and that he said he would make it himself. She said that it was Sammy, their cake decorator. He wasn’t there, she said.
 
She went back and looked again. A minute or so later, she came out and said, “There’s no cake.” WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO CAKE?!?!?!?! She said there was no birthday cake back there, and then began nervously chuckling. This wasn’t funny.
 
After saying that, she went back to what she was doing, as if I would say, “Oh, okay,” and walk away. I asked to see a manager. She told me she didn’t know how to call a manager. I think I said something to the affect of, “Well, you need to figure it out.” So, she asked the other woman behind the counter.

After fiddling with the phone for a couple of minutes, she couldn’t figure it out. I was still standing there with my arms folded, fuming. She chuckled nervously while I watched her trying to figure out how to call the manager. She asked another person who showed her how to do it correctly.
   
The manager came over, and I told her exactly what happened: “I ordered a cake on Thursday for pickup on Saturday. I called on Saturday saying I would pick up the cake today. Today, she tells me there’s no cake. How does that happen?!?!?  I mean, if there’s no cake, my daughter’s party is ruined.” The manager apologized and went to talk to the girl.
 
After a brief conversation between the two, a third, older woman came over. They chatted out of earshot, but the two bakery workers looked confused, and the manager looked panicked. The manager came back over to me with a new order form and said they could make the cake for me in 20 minutes by putting two quarter-sheet cakes together.

So, I re-ordered the cake, but was clearly annoyed: half-sheet, buttercream-frosted, chocolate, Hello Kitty cake. The manager filled out the order form and continued apologizing. She showed me the form to verify the information and the spelling of my daughter’s name. After confirming everything, she said I should come back in 20 minutes because if I stood there, there might be “too much pressure” for them to decorate the cake, which could make them mess it up.

At that point, I thought of a couple more things to get. When we finished shopping, we decided to pay and load the stuff into the truck while we waited. Then, my dad wanted to get some coffee from the McDonalds in Walmart, so we headed over there. From the McDonalds, we could see the bakery counter.

First, the younger girl was working on the cake by herself. Then, the older woman started helping out. Then, another woman, who looked like a manager came over and was helping. Then a man in street clothes, with a Walmart nametag, came over and helped. So, the four of them were working on this cake behind the counter.
 
By the time we paid, loaded the truck, and got coffee, 40 minutes passed. At this point, it was 1 p.m., so we had one hour to get back and get food prepared before the party. So, I stood by the counter to put the pressure on them.

The younger girl asked the older woman a question. I was not close enough to hear the question, but the answer was, “Just do the best you can.” That didn’t real instill my confidence in the cake. I should note here that they were working behind the counter, so I could not see the cake.

After a few minutes of frantically working, the two women were fumbling over each other, which resulted in an argument. It got pretty heated, while my dad and I watched in frustrated amusement. The manager-looking lady came back over and put an end to it. Then, she said, “Finish it up, and give it to the customer for free.” She said this twice. I thought, “It better be free, because there’s no way in h*ll I’m paying for this nonsense.” Then, she walked away.
 
After a few more minutes, they finished the cake and showed it to me. Ta-da! It was a Hello Kitty cake. It wasn’t great, but it was as close as they could get to the picture. But, there were a couple of problems. First, it was a quarter-sheet cake. I ordered a half-sheet on Thursday, and twice on this day. (The manager said it twice and confirmed it. She even said put two cakes together!) And second, it said, “Nyah Happy Birthday,” not “Happy Birthday Nyah.”

Sigh!

They handed me the cake, and I asked if I would be okay just walking out with it, or if I needed something to confirm it was free. The older woman said that it needed a label. But neither of them knew how to make a label. So, they brought in a third girl who was there the whole time, making pastries. She never worked on the cake.
 
She printed the label. Meanwhile, both girls who worked on the cake left. So, I said, it is supposed to be free. She said no, it was $15. I said, “No, the manager said it was free.” And this girl had the nerve to try to argue with me!!!

So, I asked her to call the manager. She didn’t know how to use the intercom and had no way of calling her. What the %$%$^&$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, we walked over to customer service.

As we approached, the manager I originally dealt with was over there. She was with a customer so we stood and waited. When she finished with that customer, she turned to walk away and saw us. She turned around and either said, “Oh God” or “Oh Lord.” Then she turned back and asked what we needed.

I told her there were two problems. One, it was a quarter-sheet. Two, one woman said it was free, another said we had to pay and was quite rude about it. So she stormed over to the bakery counter. We followed her.

By that time, the older woman was on the phone. When we got over there, she and the manager went into the back. About five seconds later, the manager walks out holding our original cake. WHAT?!?!?!?

My guess is that the first girl didn’t actually look for it, or didn’t know where to look. So, when I got the manager the second time, I guess the older woman called Sammy and he told her where the cake was.
 
The manager asked if I wanted to the good news of the bad news. Good news: they found the cake. Bad news: I would have to pay for it. I didn’t care. I had no problem paying for the cake I ordered, if they had fulfilled their obligation.

So, we ended up getting the quarter-sheet cake free, and the half-sheet cake that I ordered. We did end up wasting a lot of time, but that was better than not having a cake at all, or showing up with that pitiful excuse for a cake they threw together.

Sammy ran out of room decorating the cake, so the “a” and “y” in birthday ran outside of the box, but by then we didn’t care. All we wanted was the cake. And, we got it. Crisis averted.