Patrick's Bakery

Liza says she and I should open up a bakery and sell cakes muffins and cupcakes.   She says my baked goods are head and shoulders above the stuff that’s out there.   One place in Wilmette has great frosting but lousy cake, and the new snobby cupcake store in Evanston has great cake but yucky frosting.   You’d think if you were opening up a cupcake store, you’d ace it, right?  And you all have had my "better-than-sex chocolate cake", or to be more accurate my “almost-better-than-sex-chocolate cake”   I had to rename it at Patrick’s insistence and my concurrence.

So, we open the bakery and Liza says we name it “Patrick’s” – she has a sick and twisted sense of humor.   I guess it’s because of the whole dog naming thing - that naming critters and things “Patrick” seem funny and apropos to her, even though I'm supposed to be trying to forget him.

So picture me in my bakery named “Patrick’s”, trying to stay busy, trying to be OK, productively going about the business of trying to forget him, humming happily to myself as I frost cupcakes.   A nice man comes in – he asks to speak with the owner, Patrick.  I am outraged.   I say, “Are you fucking kidding me?  Is this some kind of a joke?  He is confused.  “I don’t know what you mean, mam – could you please let Patrick know a customer would like to speak with him?”   He says that painful name a second time.  “Are you a fucking sadist sir?” I shriek.  “Why would you torment me by mentioning his name?”   He is even more confused – he insists he just wants to speak with the owner to give his compliments – he wants to talk with Patrick.   I can’t bear to hear him speak Patrick’s name over and over.  I berate the gentleman for his cruelty, his insensitivity, his utter lack of discretion.   With daggers in my eyes, I reach into the case of lovely confections and, one by one, start pelting him with cupcakes and blueberry muffins.   He is stunned and scared.  He bolts for the door but my aim is lethal – before he escapes, his lovely pinstripe suit is covered in blobs of pink and purple icing and blueberry stains.   My anger spent, I fall to the floor, despondent, and pick up the mess, heartsick at the mention of my love’s name and flabbergasted that anyone could be so obtuse and cruel.

Then my employee, Pamela – she answers the phone as she always does, “Patrick’s – may I help you?”    “You too!”  I scream at the top of my lungs.  Like a ninja I spring from the floor ready to gut her with my offset spatula.   “Will there be no peace for me!   Why do you torment me so?   Why do you continually rub his name in my face!!!!”    Pamela backs away from me with terror in her eyes – like she’s just encountered a grizzly bear on a woodland path.   She says, in a deliberately sing-songy voice, meant to calm me, “I just answer the phone, Sarah. That's my job”   As she speaks, she deliberately and in cautious slow motion,  makes a backwards retreat in the direction of the kitchen, not letting me out of her sight.  At the last second she turns and runs but she too is the recipient of my fury - an orange chiffon cake smacks the back of her retreating head and slithers down her back leaving a frothy peachy trail.  Heartbroken, I slump to the floor again.  “Will there be no peace for me?” I sob, scooping up handfuls of chiffon cake from the floor and stuffing it into my mouth.  “What is wrong with everyone?   Have they all gone insane?”

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Somehow this was funnier when we concocted it as we walked along the beach with Joey this morning.  We laughed until tears streamed from our eyes.   The idea of naming the bakery "Patrick’s" and then me being outraged whenever anyone says the word “Patrick” - as if it were intentional cruelty – too funny.    Or maybe Liza and I are just weird.