Sucker

S.B.'s mom, Dee, and I have been taking a cake-decorating class together.  We're primarily using fondant and gum paste to make flowers and other frilly objects.  Since I am:

1) Lazy (and therefore highly unlikely to spend time decorating a cake unless it's for someone's birthday)
and
2) the sole X chromosome in a home filled with Ys (who will most likely be unappreciative of a birthday cake topped with pink sugar carnations) --

I am highly unlikely to ever use these flower-making skills again outside of class.



However, I am still much excited about this course, mostly because I've always loved how smooth a cake covered in fondant looks.   Hell, I don't even mind eating the stuff: after all, more sugar can never be a bad thing.  Unfortunately, now I know just how handmade is a cake decorated with fondant; and -- since I know where my hands have been -- I shudder to think what exactly I'm putting into my mouth with a cake made by a stranger . . .

Dee and I signed up for this four-week course fully ready to plunk down the $45 lesson fee.  However, due to a buy-one-get-one-free promo, a nifty fifty percent off coupon, and perhaps a grave misjudgement on the part of the sales clerk (which I kindly decided to overlook), Dee and I managed to get away with paying $11.25 each for the class.

But don't feel sorry for the store: oh, no!  They failed to first mention the price of the mandatory Lesson Plan (what do I need a Lesson Plan for?  Isn't that why I have an instructor?), the required Student Kit, the necessary pounds of fondant and gum paste, and all the little odds and ends one needed to gather from home.  Dee and I decided to share supplies, which is good, since we've used maybe half of the oh-so-obligatory tools only once.

The best part about the course is the instructor.  Not because she's any good, mind you, but because she gives Dee and me lots to snicker about when her back is turned.  I'm not sure why the instructor is so replete with harassment material.  Perhaps it's her shrill chuckle, or her choice of words that just happen to remind Dee of sexual references, or the fact that she always refers to the instructions from the mandatory Lesson Plan (remember that one?  The one I paid $4.99 for?  The one I shouldn't need because the instructor should know what she's doing?).  I don't know; maybe I just feel the need to stick-it to any person in a position of authority.  Or -- maybe, just maybe -- it's simply that making fun of the instructor lessens the shame of my pathetic attempt at roses.

I think our subtle attempts to be snarky are not nearly as subtle as we thought, however; last week, after class, our instructor stopped Dee and me for a heart-to-heart.

"I get the sense you aren't feeling like these techniques are ones you could use again," she said, in a tone that implied we should be in awe of her perceptive deductive skills.  Actually, we were.

However, before I had the chance to explain about the Y chromosomes and before Dee could clarify that I sort of suckered her into the class and that she didn't even know what fondant was two weeks ago, our instructor had moved on to extolling the virtues of another class she thought more to our suiting.

"It's all about using royal icing," she bubbled.  "You would like it --" (oh yeah?)  "--because it's great if you're lazy."  (Oh.  Yeah.)

"I can just sit down and pipe out a bunch of flowers one afternoon," she continued, "and then stick them in my freezer.  Five years later, when I need them for my anniversary celebration, I can just pop them out of the freezer and stick them on my cake."

Dee and I looked at her in amazement.  "Five years?" Dee asked, skeptically.

The instructor nodded smugly.  

"Wow," I breathed, "you have a very optimistic view of your marriage."

Well, maybe I didn't say that out loud.  But I'd be damned if she talked me into taking another flower class from her.

Even if I only paid $11.25 for it.