WTAB: a pretty cake, in the right light

If my mother could add something to this blog, I think she would add a tag: WTAB. It's a term she uses to describe me sometimes: Worse Than A Boy.

Of course, she wouldn't use the abbreviation. She'd spell it out: "Honestly, Seven! Sometimes you're worse than a boy!"

Besides being an expression of her exasperation, it's also supposed to be instructive (to me). I'm not sure how effective it is, since she usually applies it to situations that are too unique to ever repeat themselves.

Now, here we are at my older sister's house: Mom, Six, and I, and we're all telling stories. Six unaccountably thinks that the most hilarious stories on earth are about me. And so she tells my sister and brother-in-law a story, and Mom joins in at various points to clarify and amplify and to set down the moral at the end.

You need to know that I don't always turn on the lights when it's dark. I don't mind the dark, but I like semi-darkness, when you can see just enough. For example, I'm an early riser, and I find the dim light before dawn to be very cosy and restful.

In Six's story, it's night and everyone's in bed. But I want a little snack, so I make my way into the kitchen. I don't want to wake anyone, so I don't turn on the lights, and anyway the glow from the street lights comes in around the edges of the drapes.

There on the counter is a little bundt cake Mom bought: an angel food cake, wrapped in plastic. Quietly, I open the wrapping, I slice off a... a little slice, and anyway it's light.

Six: "And she crams it into her mouth!"

Me: "I did not cram it into my mouth!"

Mom: "Oh ho ho!"

In any case, I drink some milk and go to bed.

The next morning, Mom says, "Seven, did you eat some of that angel food cake that was on the kitchen counter?"

"Yes. You weren't saving it for something, were you?"

Six lets out a muffled "Oh my God!" and begins rolling around on the couch, making a noise like a mixture of laughter and retching.

I look at her puzzled.

Mom: "Well, I was going to bring it back to the store. How could you eat it?"

Me: "What do you mean?"

Six cries out, "Didn't you see it?"

"No," I said, "I didn't turn on the light."

Mom sighs heavily and shows me the cake. The whole surface is dotted, evenly and completely, with polka dots of blue mold.

"I can't believe it," Six gasps. "What did it taste like?"

Later, when Mom came back from the store, I asked how she explained the missing piece.

"I told them that my daughter didn't notice and she ate it."

When she saw my embarrassment, she said, "Don't feel too bad. The lady told me she had one at home like you."

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