Dumb Cake, Sorry

Chocolate cake, chocolate cake, chocolate cake.

Everything is always about that damn chocolate cake. Papa would shriek at me for making him wait five minutes in the parking lot after school, then come up to my room afterwards when he got home with a slice of chocolate cake and a glass of cold milk. Not a word spoken, and he'd just leave and shut the door.

I'd be crying, and I wouldn't even feel that chocolate cake slide down my throat. But I think it tasted good, cause after a couple of minutes I'd be staring at the crumbs and the milk left at the bottom of the glass.

When I failed my chemistry test, papa yelled at me before leaving to buy some pipe at the hardware store. I took a nap and when I woke up for dinner, he slid a plate of chocolate cake in my direction. When I didn't want to eat it he got mad and left the table for his shed, and mama urged me to finish the damn slice of chocolate cake, the one he'd gotten for her for her birthday, with lots of frosting and sugared roses on top, mama's favorite kind of dessert.

When I got caught with my first boyfriend, papa didn't even get me chocolate cake after that one. First there was the initial war, lots of throwing of pillows at walls, raging, screaming. Then came the cold war which lasted a month or two. But the first armistice I remember is papa walking into my room one day with a glass of cold milk and a plate of chocolate cake. I didn't even care, I wanted him out so I finished that dumb chocolate cake. I hated chocolate cake.

I left for college and when I talked about papa my friend made some dumb joke about how we end up dating people like our parents. I made a vomiting sound and thought he was dumb for saying something so gross like that.

I met some guy during my last year in college. He was pretty nice, and he cared a lot about me. He'd always put in the bulbs in my apartment, and he'd go and get groceries for me. He never forgot my birthday or an anniversary, and sometimes he'd drop off coffee when I was working. He'd always pick me up from places, was always smiles and kisses, and he took care of the dog that we got so we could take care of it together.

I introduced him to papa and mama, and he hit it off pretty well with them, which I didn't understand. But I guess me living out of the house during school made me more of an adult, or maybe papa realized he missed me, cause I got along surprisingly well with papa too. We talked about movies, and books, and all these writers that we liked, and damn, I liked a lot of the same stuff as papa, as it turns out. Then we had dinner and dessert, and I was a little disappointed that it was vanilla ice cream and cookies and not slices of chocolate cake.

Boyfriend and I chose an apartment after graduation, and we moved in together. Our first argument was pretty terrible, and it was about something dumb too. I think it was because I forgot to take the trash out one weekend, and we had small flies in our apartment for a while. It was nothing unmanageable, just a few claps here and there and they'd all be gone in a jiffy. But damn, my boyfriend would not shut his damn mouth. He was running it off, lecturing me, and I just sat there watching him until I couldn't hold it in anymore either, and I screamed at him. Then he talked back, and I got even angrier. Then we just stormed off in opposite directions, him to our room and me to my car.

I rode around town for a bit until my temper had cooled, and I felt bad for screaming at him about something so dumb, maybe I should have just said sorry and taken out the damn trash and everything would have been fixed. So I went off and bought a Frappuccino from the cafe, his favorite kind, the blended one with strawberries and whip cream. And when I got back home I saw that he had gotten me apple pies from McDonalds, my favorite thing to snack on, and we just kind of smiled sheepishly and sat down to watch a movie together. And that was kind of how it went after every argument, me with my dumb strawberries 'n cream Frappuccino and him with his apple pies, and pretty soon I ended up hating the sight of apple pies, and I hated even going to the cafe to buy that dumb Frappuccino, and I'm sure he felt the same way too, but whenever I got the pies and gave Boyfriend the drink, swallowing the anger got easier and we would just sit down and watch a dumb movie with our dumb snacks.