Better to Laugh

My husband’s birthday fell on Mother’s Day this year, so he had to share his day with all the mothers in our family for lunch.  He was a very good sport about it.  My 21 year-old son, Brad, and I felt badly that Terry hadn’t gotten a birthday cake, so we went out to get Chinese for dinner and stopped by the store for a cake to surprise him.  We couldn’t decide which kind of cake to get, then Brad said, “Isn’t German shepherd cake is favorite?”  I literally Laughed Out Loud in the store, so loudly that people turned to look.  Laughing, Brad put his hand up to my mouth.  I couldn’t stop; I just kept laughing, loudly.  I finally gained my composure.  Then images of German “shepherd” cake came into my mind:  a cake with pointy ears on top, a cake with fur stuck in the icing, etc. and the laughter would start again.  I won’t even discuss the possibility of what a German shepherd cake would taste like.  I finally quieted down at the store, but I still laugh when the thought of a German shepherd cake pops into my mind.

After we ate the Chinese food, Brad put candles on the chocolate fudge cake that we had settled on.  We had gotten trick candles (re-lighting kind), but I didn’t know that he was going to put the entire pack of trick candles on the cake.  As he walked into the family room, the candles sputtered like sparklers on the 4th of July.  Terry laughed; he knew what was up right away.  They were burning quickly, and the room became smokey.  We had to take the candles off and throw them into a glass of water to get them extinguished.  The stench lasted for hours.  It only added to the image of German shepherd cake.

Well, it started out as a birthday almost forgotten in comparison to Mother’s Day, but ended up being one of the most memorable birthdays Terry has had.