I celebrated a milestone birthday, recently.

Nothing out of the regular as far as special birthday celebrations go, though. I spent the morning reading and replying to love, affection and warmth that poured out like the Niagara Falls via WhatsApp messages and phone calls from parents, loving siblings and good friends. 

The feeling of being loved is a heady one! 

The day went by in a pleasant blur and towards evening, it arrived – the parcel, a long cylindrical gift-wrapped thing taped to the bottom of a wide cardboard carton. The whole thing looked like one of those science projects which children are told to do in school, but are of course done by their fond and harried parents, while the children themselves watch cartoon network. How the delivery guy had transported the thing precariously balanced on the front of his e-scooter is a mystery. But he did.

I looked at it.

“What is this?” I asked and the boy rolled his eyes with a ‘don’t know, don’t care, just take the damn thing and I’ll be off’ look.

So I took it inside and placed it on the centre table, and the husband and I spent 5 minutes circling it cautiously as if the thing was a missile about to explode any minute. 

Finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer, I carefully pulled apart the several tapes around the long round box, revealing the mysterious thing to be a cylindrical 3-layered cake wrapped in butter paper, with 3 tiny cards dangling from the side. 

It was from the twin son, informed one of the cards. There’s a knife inside, informed the second. And the third card? Ah well – it turned out to be instructions. On how to cut the cake. In 3 steps. 

There are cakes and then there’s this. A special cake which cannot be cut simply by plunging a knife into its creamy depths. 

“I’ve been cutting cakes since donkeys’ years and I should know how to cut one without instructions by now?” I thought.  But apparently not this one. This cut-the-cake project could only be done by specifically following the how-to-cut-the-cake guidelines, provided so thoughtfully by the cake makers. 

I inspected the thing. “It looks vaguely like the Tower of Pisa.” I said.

“Tsk, tsk,” said the husband. “If you don’t cut it fast, it will start leaning and then it will look exactly like the Leaning Tower of whatever!”

So, I read the instructions. Hold knife firmly, it said, and slice through the outer edge of edible wafer covering, from the top, right down to the bottom in one deft movement. 

I did exactly as told and came up with a lovely long slice of cake. “Got it on video?” I asked the official videographer of the day. The husband nodded and I sent it off to the son thanking him profusely for the truly beautiful cake, and gesture. 

He called instantly. “Is that all the decoration on the cake?” he asked, sounding puzzled.

“That’s all,” I said, assuring him that it was lovely. 

“No … there should be more!” he insisted. “Check again.” 

So I retrieved the cake from its box and looked carefully at it from all sides! And … waddya know! My face is looking back at me! I’ve seen plenty of cake on the face, but this was a first. My face on the cake, all down one side, the side which we hadn’t seen all this while, even when I cut a slice off! How, you may well ask. So did the son. “How did you’ll not see that?” he asked in an astonished tone. I shrugged sheepishly.

Like the side of the moon which we never get to see because of rotation and revolution or whatever, I suggested, trying to save the situation and my embarrassment. 

By an extreme stroke of good luck, no thanks to the instruction booklet, I had not cut through the image in the 1st round, not before taking pics and videos at least.

Subsequently, we cut and ate the entire cake. It was super delicious. So was my face! 

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