The Coconut Celebration

Today was Scout’s first day of kindergarten! She was so nervous this morning that she was sick to her stomach. For a minute I thought she might have to miss the first day, but after a nice long shower she was finally ready to go. Scout is my 10th child to head off to kindergarten, so you would think it wouldn’t affect me…but it does. By the time my sweetie got home from work and things had settled down a little, he could see that I was in need of some severe sugar. He suggested we pull our last Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake from the freezer. It’s been chillin’ there for over a year, just waiting for the right special occasion.

Coconut cakes and I go way back. I was introduced to them by my grandparents. I’m pretty sure they were Grandpa’s favorite treat. You buy them in the freezer section, so when you pull them out of the box they are totally frozen. And that’s the ONLY way to eat them. Frozen and with a fork right off the square foam serving plate. Sometimes Grandma would buy one of the other flavors, but I’m sure she always regretted that decision. Oh, Grandpa would eat a chocolate one, but he would gripe about it the entire time.

He showed me how to start at the corner and eat the entire outside edge of frosting before moving to the center of the cake. He got two corners and I got two corners unless someone else happened to be hanging out with us. Grandma would just shake her head a cut a piece for herself out of the center of the cake when we were finished…that is if there was any left.

So sometime after my sweetie and I were married, I introduced him to Coconut Cake and the proper etiquette for sharing one. Always a chocolate man, he was skeptical at first, but after one bite he wholeheartedly agreed to become the devourer of the other two corners. Although I married the most amazing man on earth because now he only eats one corner and gives the other three to me. See my side of the cake? All the outer frosting is gone. He must have known I was going to write a post about this because look how nicely he hollowed out his corner and saved the edges for me.

OK, now that you are all looking for your car keys so you can run down to the grocery store and pick up one of these little gems, I want to tell you one more story. It happened in 2005. I was about 7 months pregnant with Scout and it was our 22nd anniversary. My sweetie took me out to dinner and while we were gone, the kids didn’t do their chores (as usual). So in an effort to divert our attention (it was our anniversary after all), they made us a lovely bubble bath so we could enjoy a nice romantic time in our bedroom. They had dimmed the lights and set out a couple of candles, carefully placed some towels, and filled the jetted tub with water and way too much soap (we carried laundry baskets full of bubbles to the shower later just so we could get in the tub!). They were so excited to show us their handiwork, they dragged us up the stairs the minute we walked through the front door.

It wasn't me! The Butler did it!

As we surveyed the scene, one of the girls scanned the tub nervously. “What happened to the cake?” she finally asked. We glanced at the tub, but all we saw were crumbs and a square foam plate. The kids immediately started blaming each other for the missing cake. Annoyed, we shooed them out of the room. The mystery gradually unraveled when we discovered that the dog seemed to have no appetite for her supper. And I’m pretty sure I detected a drop or two of whipped cream in her brown hair. An entire Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake devoured by a dog…Grandpa would have certainly griped about that!