Happy Birthday.

Last month was Miss B.'s birthday. I ordered a cake at Wegman's for the little lady about a week before her party. When I was placing the order there were two girls at the bakery counter-- one that wasn't very glamorous and seemed to be doing all the work, and a gussied up blonde girl who didn't seem to be doing anything besides be-littling the other employee. I ask if I can place an order and the gussied up one says that she'll do it since she's more experienced.

She takes down the simple stuff like name, flavors, etc. and then when she goes to write out the message, she writes it as "Happy Birthday Miss B." Then I ask if I can change it to: "Happy 2nd Birthday Miss B."

Does she cross out the old message and write a new one entirely? Does she just scrap the whole form and do it again? Nope on both counts-- instead she just draws an arrow and puts "2nd".

To steal a phrase from Star Wars, I had a bad feeling about this.

A week goes by and we go to pick up the cake. What does the message say? "Miss B. Happy 2nd Birthday"

I look at this and shake my head and say to the baker that the message is wrong. The baker seemed a bit harried and says to me, rather defensively, "That's what the form says!" And I say, "no, it doesn't-- see the arrow?" Then I see the blonde girl who took my order and I say to the baker: "I'm sorry, but that girl over there took my order and she's just not very bright."

The baker laughed out loud and tells me, "You just made my day, how about I give you the filling for free?" Done! And that's how you get a $35 cake for $27. Make the baker laugh.