Ice Cream Cake, Anyone?

in #art6 years ago

Someone get this kid a napkin pronto!

’Tis the birthday cake to subjectively put all the other birthday cakes to shame: The Carvel Ice Cream Cake. So delicious, so delectable, so deceivingly full of objectionable ingredients much too ridiculous to believe that they exist within a reasonably edible, tasty frozen dessert — and yet, they do. Such delectable contents include everyone’s favorite go-to, high-fructose corn syrup, diglycerides, cellulose gum, and the absolute yummiest part — sodium phosphate. If I didn’t know any better, I would think the aforementioned elements were all song titles from an upcoming Kanye West album. Even so, a single Carvel ice cream cake remains one of the most treasured birthday treats for anyone under the tender age of thirty-two. It also happens to be the very birthday cake that has eluded me my entire life.

It’s not that I’ve never had a piece of this divine, frozen confection before — quite the contrary. For sure I have had a few slices in my day, except they were always presented to me at someone else’s birthday party — and as such — they were always the stingiest slices of ice cream cake ever! It’s so puzzling to me, though not surprising, that for one reason or another, no one ever thinks to buy enough ice cream cake for a large children’s birthday party. Truly, a Carvel ice cream cake container with a serving size of twenty may sound sensible, but even a moderately attended bash could never withstand the rapturous pace in which such a dessert is devoured. Then there’s the matter of the son-of-a-bitch tasked with the cutting of said birthday delight; this patronizing cretin is proud to wield their power, and a frighteningly large knife, before cutting outrageously thin titbits for everyone — enough to make even an anorexic wince — but not before cunningly cutting and setting aside a loftier portion for themselves to eat later, alone in a bathroom. All anyone in attendance could ever do is just stand there with their small Styrofoam plate in hand, feign a smile, and be grateful to be getting some ice cream cake at all. That’s the end-game anyway, isn’t it? No one ever actually goes to a children’s birthday festivity for a good, wholesome time, do they? And if truth be told, since when does anyone ever really care about whose overindulged birthday it is to begin with? You just show up for some cake. One could maybe even arrive with a small gift in hand, but most important — is that slice of cake. For extra incentive, there’s the added bonus of booze.

Disparately, whenever it came time for my birthday, there was always plenty of generic cake and a tub of some poor-excuse-for-ice-cream to go around. And because this budget-friendly birthday package was always so readily available, it was always the deal I got. What a steal! Mom would heavy-handedly make the birthday cake from scratch — by literally clawing open a box of Duncan Hines while under some kind of drug-induced influence — and auntie Margie would bring over a very large pail of bland, Napolitano ice cream, which somehow perfectly matched her sweater. The sweater itself clashed with everything else she was wearing, but her acid washed jeans with pleats were garishly stylish. Apparently clown apparel was rather normal eighties, especially when cloaked amongst a child’s birthday party.

What I loved most about my aunt, was that as lame as as her frugally-purchased dessert was, she almost always secretly gifted herself a more expensive pint of chocolate Häagen-Dazs ice cream, which she conveniently hid in the freezer’s non-working ice dispenser, behind the same old stale ice that was there before it broke down. By the way, if you’ve never heard a Puerto Rican aunt masterfully over-pronounce a made-up Danish name before, you should stop one in mid-purchase at a Target and ask her pretty much anything you wish, she’s likely to over-pronounce to you her response.

As fun as she was, Aunt Margie was also stern, and was quick to put me in my place if I even hinted at any kind of dissatisfaction with my homely birthday festivities. While fervently picking off lint from her fashionably sexy, off-one-shoulder, oversized sweater, and polishing off a Newport Menthol cigarette at the very same time, my aunt would look at me squarely in the eyes and say, “Hey…you want a real ice cream cake kid? Great — then throw your own goddamned birthday party.”

By ‘birthday party’ what my aunt truly meant was a trip to the 99 Cents Store for some plastic forks, Styrofoam plates, and two number ‘3’ candles — which, when fashioned together — made the number ‘8’. This, as I have come to learn, was the Puerto Rican solution for not being able to find a numbered candle that actually coincided with your nephew’s prospective age. Between my co-conspiring mother and aunt, they could’ve easily taken those very same four quarters and purchased eight small wax candles, but those probably would’ve created horrid gaping holes on top a cake that was already holding on for dear life. Not to say Mom didn’t know how to make a cake, but when one is under the influence, it can be a challenging endeavor to try and comprehend if that’s crack, or cake powder you’re about to smoke.

Regardless of the peculiarities that surrounded my birthdays, I was absolutely grateful for whatever I got, however little, because it came from my mother’s and aunt’s special little hearts — made even more special by the cardiovascular effects of their opioid use. At the very least, the bar was set so low, that there was no way to disappoint me in the upcoming year.

Despite having no expectations, year in and year out, I would ask Santa — that’s Claus, not Maria — for a simple birthday cake that all children were deserving of: The Fudgie the Whale, Carvel ice cream cake. Yet, year after year, he would metaphorically climb through our chimney-less window, and while chewing on tobacco and eating the stale chocolate chip cookie I had laid out for him, he’d lean in and whisper to me, “Hey kid, your birthday passed already…let it the hell go.”

Santa — that’s Claus, not Barbara — was always so rude to me, but he was in fact right, if not imaginary. My birthday did happen to fall within the festive month of December, and so I had to decide each and every year of my childhood, which one I wanted more: a very Happy Birthday, or, a very Merry Christmas — because I couldn’t have both. The expenses on my family would have been too taxing. When I tried confronting Santa — Claus not Fe — about the possibility of being compensated for the lack of joy in my life, he was unyielding, and told me instead to suck his big red reindeer’s popsicle, before unwrapping and handing me a big red frozen popsicle treat in the shape of a reindeer.

I formed the unusual opinion early on that achieving pure happiness, was impossible, and concluded that only the Brady Bunch children must’ve gotten everything they ever wanted — including a gay father. Heck, even I would’ve settled for a gay father — any father at all, really — even if his new name was Caitlyn. Sure, there was the possibility that this male adult figure would too disappoint, but at least I’d have one around. All children like me ever got to do was watch from a television screen, as the Brady’s and the Jenner’s were not only afforded fathers who loved them, but fathers who bought them ice cream cakes whenever they wanted. Though if I can be so frank, I can only speak on behalf of the Brady’s; I’m sure whatever cake the Jenner’s got from their dad was simply Kardashian leftover’s.

I would like to take this time to establish that I am no hater. In fact, I quite enjoyed watching people get everything they fantasized about, especially on the hit 80’s TV drama, Dynasty. The fabulously dressed elitists on that show demanded and very well got the money, power, respect, fur coats and shoulder pads they deserved. Keeping Up with the Kardashian’s is just about the same exact show, except they demand money, power, respect, fur coats and knee pads. The women on that show really know how to use those knees.

Nonetheless, the invented lives of television as they always do, would carry on, as I would go on to harbor antipathy for my ice cream cake-less childhood and dejected birthday celebrations. Instead of a piñata, I got ñada…because piñatas, for the most part, costs moñey. And as my aunt Margie would say, “You want some real birthday decorations kid? Hook me up with your friend Santa.” Yet, when the tears would roll down my disenchanted cheeks, it was my mother who encouraged me to be a bigger boy than the one I was being and reminded that believing in Santa was absurd. If I wanted a Carvel ice cream cake that bad, all I had to do was ask her. The answer was still no, but at least I wasn’t wasting valuable time trying to convince some strange fictional man that I was worth the pleasure. As Mom would tell me, “Don’t ever let any man dictate your worth or tell you what you deserve. Now get your ass to bed.”

Off to bed I resignedly went, where under my pillow I would happily discover that Mom had left me a birthday card, with Fudgie the Whale on it.



Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://selfscroll.com/ice-cream-cake-anyone/
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