monster cakes, psychotic women and men wearing makeup, or just another saturday

me, talking seriously, about cake. not really, i was talking about the charity, feed the children.

SO, last friday i didn’t sleep much. i was nervous about looking like a douche on tv, but i was more afraid that i would sleep in and not get up on time. this happens to me any time i HAVE to be somewhere. so instead of getting my required 8 hours, i got about 4, with speckles of restless sleep in between.

my friend ellen came over (hi ellen!) around 5:45 and we carefully loaded a three tiered monstrosity of a cake into the back of my car. see, that was part of the gig. i had to take a sample of one of the cakes being raffled off up to the station so that it could be on tv as well. the scary part was this cake was crazy huge and insanely heavy. that’s another reason i didn’t sleep. i was worried i would drop it during transport and then i would have pissed off bakery people putting hits out on me for ruining their big television debut. no pressure there.

but i didn’t have to worry. ellen was there and if anything went down, i was prepared to place all the blame on her. bad ellen.

lucky for her, we (er i mean she) didn’t drop the cake.

the other issue with the ginormous cake was that it was ginormous and wouldn’t fit in my refrigerator. thank god it was sort of cool that night so i PLACED IT ON TOP OF TOMMY’S CAR IN THE GARAGE overnight so that it wouldn’t melt and go from its theme of being “santa’s workshop” to “massacre at the north pole.” i got up several times during the night to check on it.

we got there, hoisted the cake on our shoulders (ok, maybe we used a rolling cart) and placed the cake on set without incident. thank god.

and thank god i wore a dark colored shirt because by now, i had massive pit stains from sweating. now i was nervous about sounding like an idiot–and looking fat on tv. not to worry, they had me positioned behind the steroid cake so all you saw was the top of my shoulders and my head. i never looked skinnier. except now when i go back and see myself i’m wondering, ‘is my head bigger than normal?’

i had 25 minutes to wait before going on and the genius in me (don’t know where that came from actually–maybe a smart person lives somewhere deep, deep inside me and only comes out if there’s cake?) asked to see the list of interview questions–you know, so i wouldn’t be stumped by anything. because really, this wasn’t my event to pimp. i had to study up on what i was promoting so i wouldn’t look completely ridiculous. it’s a good thing i asked to see the list of questions because the first one had me scratching my head. WHAT ARE THE BAKERIES BATTLING FOR? i hadn’t the slightest. world peace? universal domination? monopoly on the enriched flour market?

so i pulled the producer man aside and told him as much. and then after he stared at me for a minute i had to explain that i was just the chimp who was sent to do the dirty work–that i really had no idea what i was saying. the whore had been whored out. he stood there for a second and got a strange look on his face. then he nodded as if he understood (and then he backed away from me about 4 feet). he clearly thought i was deranged.

i wanted to tell him to relax, that i wasn’t crazy and that really deep down i was as normal as his next door neighbor–if his neighbor had 4 kids and an addiction to pinot grigio and resembled a crazy person. completely normal.

he did, however, scratch through that question as he walked away, talking to himself. he was probably going to call security.

good idea. you never know when some psycho will show up at the station at 6am on a saturday and wreak havoc.

at the next commercial break, i was on. i gave ellen the thumbs up and walked on the set. this was it. this was the moment where i’d either be the hero, or the zero. it was anyone’s game.

i chatted with the anchor, who was very nice. there was something different about him. i couldn’t put my finger on it. oh, wait a minute. now i see. he was wearing more makeup than I was!

don’t stare. don’t stare. don’t get distracted. don’t get distracted. what was i here for again?

and then, action!

the interview went splendidly. i sort of took over, like i do with most things. ask my family.

and zip, boom, bam, it was over like that.

i was a sweaty mess. my palms were wet, my pits were flooding. but i’d made it.

i must say, i quite liked being on tv. maybe i’ll even have my own show someday. and maybe there’ll even be cake.

but not like cake i’m responsible for. that will be some other schmuck’s job.