Yesterday was my Dad's 75th birthday. Mother called the bakery at her favorite grocery store and ordered Dad a birthday cake (she and Dad have ordered cakes at this store for years). She didn't want an assortment of colored roses on the cake; just white roses... for Yorkshire where Dad was born. She told the girl at the bakery that she wanted the cake to say "Happy Birthday Granpa". Notice how we spell "Granpa" without the D. The girl was a little confused so Mother spelled it for her G-R-A-N-P-A. The girl thought Mother said M instead of N. "No" said Mother, "it's N as in Nancy." But the girl didn't understand Nancy, so Mother told her, "N as in north." She understood north.
When Mother went to pick up the cake yesterday this is what she got (you may now scroll down and look at the picture):
When I first saw the cake at Dad's birthday party last night, I wasn't sure what to think of it, and for a brief moment I thought Mother had ordered it that way on purpose. Then Mother told the family the story of how Dad's birthday cake came to be. We all had a very good laugh over it. Mother told us that her reaction when she picked up the cake at the bakery was, "it's a good thing we are a family with a sense of humor."
Michael, who has been in the retail business FOR-E-VER... told us that 99 out of 100 people would not have had Mother's generous reaction. So... I'm curious, what would you have done? What do you think of this story? Please, please tell!
16 comments:
We would send it to cakewrecks.com so the entire world could enjoy the funny!
I love it! I love my Granma! I think it's awesome that instead of getting upset she thought "This will be a good story." I'd like to think that I would be as gracious, but I don't know if I would be. Hopefully it's genetic.
Great to have a sense of humor by all means. But the principal of the matter is, I hope she didn't pay a DIME for the cake. Ya have to hand it to the bakery for having the guts to show it to the customer like that!!
I agree that your mother and entire family are blessed with a fantastic sense of humor, but that bakery really should have done something about that. How could they just cross out the mistakes? I'm mortified for them whoever they are. If they had handed that to most people, the cake would hit the fan!
The bakery was lucky to have such an understanding woman pick up that cake. My hope is to be more like Bea Marsden and remember that it tastes the same with or without the mistaken spellings.
I would not have accepted it. And, IF I had.... I wouldn't have paid for it. Kudos to my mother for being so calm and seeing the funny of it.
Well, we all saw the funny of it, and we were all calm. BUT....
To be honest, I would probably only have taken the cake if they gave me a pretty good discount on it! I worked at a grocery store for four years, and another couple in retail and I can't believe they even tried to give it to her!! I love that your mom just laughed about it, though. I need to work on having that kind of attitude more in life.
Look! My comments is actually working. There is a whole website dedicated to professional bakers making mistakes like this. You should send this in!
www.cakewrecks.com
I hope she didn't pay for it either. That should have been on the house for sure.
I would have been very upset and probably would throw a fit. I would still take the cake but there is no way I would pay for it.
I would have definitely seen the humor in it. But with as easy as it would have been for them to have corrected it and made it look good, it is baffling why they would have tried to pass it off, discount or no.
I think something we have failed to mention, it was the girl who took the order over the phone who made all the mistakes. She wrote and crossed out and wrote again, the decorator only did what was on the order form. But one thing is for sure, this is one cake that will "live in infamy"
I would have made sure they knew that they made a mistake, then my passive personality would have waited to see if they made any kind of adjustment, then I would have just paid forit, laughed about it, taken a picture and blogged about. Then if it was very tasty I woul dhave probably eaten it. If they didn't offer any adjustment, I might have called and spoken to a manager just to let them know that the next patron might not have been so kind and generous. People talk and it can ruin the business.
...and the next time I comment, I will check for typos.
Yes, put it on cakewrecks, that is so awesome! I don't know what I would have done...if it was from Dicks Market I would take it home and eat it because they are the best :)
I think I would have asked for a discount too. I just love the way it turned out though. It made it a lot more fun for everyone.
I'm a pretty nice person, but I would have said "what the heck?" and made them redo it . . . though it probably made a good conversation piece!
Found your blog from Georgia's blog . . . hope you don't mind the comment. ..
Can't believe that cake!!!
HI...I came over from Tina's blog (Lincoln Family)
OH MY...that is too funny, but I honestly have to say I would have been "none to pleased"...or if I did take the cake, I would NOT have paid for it.
I can't believe they really did that and thought it would be remotely acceptable.
BUT...KUDOS to your grandma...caue you gotta just love someone who is calm and has a great sense of humor.
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