I was trying to choose a page-a-day calendar, and I ended up buying one that wasn’t even on the list: Effin’ Birds page-a-day calendar. And it turns out I don’t really like it. I’d seen Effin’ Birds images as memes around the internet and had found them funny, but in a page-a-day desk calendar it’s bringing me down. Like, this weekend’s message was “could you shut the f*** up before i die,” which seems less snappy/irreverent and more depressed/mean. Today’s is better (“feel free to leave me out of your bullsh*t”), but I am still shopping for a new calendar. Bright side: most of them are 50% off now! And the longer I dither, the cheaper they get!
Rob’s birthday is very close to Christmas, and this was the first one since his birth that he’s been away from us. The day I was going to be shipping his birthday box (I was waiting for one last-second item that was due to arrive mid-day), I was at the grocery store and I impulsively bought a cake. I had previously considered various cake options, but they all seemed unworkable: I could bake a cake, but there was no way I could successfully package or ship it, and anyway I doubted it would be much good to eat a few days after baking; I could have a cake delivered to him, but the prices for that were astonishing; I could send him a cake mix and a can of frosting, but I didn’t know if he had oil and eggs and cake pans—and it seemed like a collection of Can’t Make It Into Cake elements would be worse than No Cake At All.
But then on the way to the produce section my eye fell on the Entenmann’s display. Those cakes are made to be hold up to a fair amount of slinging-around before they’re sold, and they appeared to be approximately the size of the medium flat-rate box I was planning to use. And they were marked “Best by January 17th,” so Entenmann’s expected them to still taste good TWO WEEKS after the day I would be buying/shipping it. And they were about $7, so I figured even if I shipped one and it was a failure, it was still worth trying for the fun experiment of it and for the symbolic intent of it. And I even got a little test-run of my idea, because the cake fell out of a tipped-over shopping bag on the way home, and it landed upside-down, and there was no consequence: the cake did not come out of its pan, the frosting did not stick to the lid, etc.
And it was apparently a success! Rob said it was particularly amusing to open a box and start taking out presents and find an unexpected CAKE underneath; and also he said he’d just been talking with a friend earlier that day, and had mentioned that he hadn’t thought about a birthday cake until it was too late, so he’d been planning to make do with banana bread. Which is AT LEAST as grim as any bashed-up icing-stuck-to-lid cake I could have sent! (No no—banana bread isn’t grim, it’s DELICIOUS. But as an alternative to birthday cake, on a person’s first independent grown-up birthday away from their parents, chosen ONLY because the person didn’t realize in time that they would need to figure out their own birthday cake—well then it’s grim.)
The one thing I wished I’d thought to include: CANDLES. That would have been so easy, and not expensive! Well, but does he have matches? Probably not. I have a bunch of those cute wee little boxes of matches, but I am NOT AT ALL SURE about sending those through the mail, and my guess is that the answer to any such question posed to the post office would be a gigantic panicked hands-waving-wildly NO. Plus, WOULD he put the candles into the cake, light them, and blow them out, all alone? I am guessing also no. And in fact I feel a little dismal, thinking of it, so now I am glad/relieved I didn’t send the candles. Whew! Close call!
I’ve been dithering too about a post-Christmas already-on-sale purchase. My kid’s little tree is kind of full with his ornaments now, and i was pondering getting a larger one. It was already marked down considerably, but still felt kind of expensive. I added it to my cart and dithered. Then Joann kindly rewarded my cart-filled procrastination by sending me a 25% coupon plus 2.99 shipping (but my shipping was already free). I wasn’t sure it would work on a clearance tree, but it did! So I bought it! With a big discount! So, sign into your account and add the stuff to your cart whenever you feel indecisive! You might receive a coupon!
I’m so glad the cake was both received intact, and well-received by Rob! Whew!
I think sometimes that’s how you get things like matches and oil. Like, your mom sends you a candle so you buy matches and that’s how you transform from young adult to slightly less young adult who also owns matches. The same thing with pantry staples- they just sort of accumulate as you need them until one day you’re a person who owns tarragon and bay leaves.
I am so glad the Entenmann’s cake worked out so well. I am a huge fan of a good Entenmann’s cake. They really do stay fresh and I particularly like the icing. It peels off in a very satisfying way. I also can imaging how fun it was to discover the cake in care package, like a warm hug from home.
I love all of your care package and postcard posts, I am making the resolution to send out more personalized mail throughout the year. They really are so fun to send and receive.
For a potential future surprise, have you looked into the cake in a mug? I just tried the brownie in a mug and it worked really well and took minimum ingredients. Not 100% sure if the ingredients but the brownie one required 3 tablespoons of water OR milk. It also comes with a few servings so you can make more than one. Plus you can add in a pretty or fun mug as part of the package as well.
Banana bread, while delicious, is not birthday cake.
What a great solution! And I am SURE you can’t send anything flammable like matches through the mail, so whew!
What a lovely thing to send!
I love that you sent him a cake, and love even more that it was a Shipping Success!
As someone who now spends her birthdays alone (and I do make myself a cake), I can tell you it’s never even occurred to me to put candles on it and blow them out. I feel like the candles are for Other People, so they can sing. I do not miss them at all. :)
Entenmann’s! What a perfect solution! I’m glad he appreciated it and that it arrived unscathed.
“Whew! Close call!”
Had me literally chuckling. I think I’m slowly going to pieces in this game of covid frogger I’m playing but the chuckle helped. Thank you.
This is such a sweet and wonderful post. Reading it made my day.
I have Beeswax candles shipped to my house. In every shipment, the company includes a matchbook. If it was an issue, I suspect they would not.
My personal feeling is that, in these post 2020 times, we don’t need to blow on cake we plan to feed to the people we care about. I mean that not in a self-congratulatory way, but in a “here is another reason to be glad you didn’t send candles” way.
Wow, that cake sounds like it was the exact perfect thing to send! So glad you thought it of it! And the no-matches decision seems like a good choice, too.
I’m so glad the cake worked out! Whew, indeed.
But then I had a thought for next year (if he still lives so far away – hey, who knows what can happen in a year…especially these days) that might be fun.
You could contact a local bakery near him and order a small cake or cupcake and send him a message to go pick up his surprise.
Entenmann’s! What an inspired idea! Filing this one away as a fun care package idea!
Oh my goodness, how delightful! I shall appropriate this idea for my daughter’s 1st birthday away from home in April.
My son had his first birthday away from home last spring. He was a college junior, but he’d been doing remote classes for covid the past two years. I had bakery cupcakes delivered, but this is a good idea to keep in my back pocket for future years. I’m glad it was a success.
The cake story makes me so happy!
For those of you who do not have access to Entenmann’s, a sic-cup Bundt fits perfectly into a large round tin from the Container Store.
*six-cup
I did the cake delivery thing for a friend who moved far from home right before her birthday. I ended up using door dash from a local bakery and while it was expensive (because door dash always is) it worked like a charm and arrived on time with little prior planning and met her dietary needs. It was super fun. And now Door Dash thinks I live on the opposite coast :)
For a friend’s birthday, I used Door Dash to deliver two pieces of cake and a candle from a local grocery store. It was way more affordable than the cake shops, bakery fees. It was a chain vs shopping local, which isn’t great, but they were able to get the cake there within an hour.
I love imagining him going through the box and HEY! A CAKE! I just looked up Entenmann’s cake and it looks MUCH better than banana-bread-instead-of-birthday-cake. Both my kids are away for their birthdays now, but home a couple of weeks later, so it’s not perfect, but it’s okay. Fortunately for Eve I have a friend nearby that can proxy-deliver cake and balloons.
Now I am deeply sad they don’t sell Entenmann’s cake in my neck of the woods. Not because I want to ship one, but they look really tasty!