The Case of The Calcified Cupcake

My younger son accuses me of planning this enormous coincidence of dates. Even I am not that good. But if he chooses to believe such, it is out of my hands. This coincidence took place nearly two years ago, when his 14th birthday fell on his older brother's high school graduation day. Rather than split up the parties so they could each have their own unique celebration, I decided, why not combine them? They were both open to the idea. I was happy about this, one major house cleaning before, one major clean-up after, one rounding up and inviting of the friends and relatives. And two cakes. Actually, I happened upon the inspiration to do about fifty cakes. Cupcakes! Before it was a trend. Half were decorated with the year 2006 and other graduation motifs. Half were tricked up with tiny, shiny pinwheels and were baked in birthday paper liners. But just like that last, forlorn piece of cake sitting on the platter, that final cupcake simply refused to be consumed. Throughout the course of the festivities, various cupcake toppers were strewn about here and there. The final cupcake at some point became a pincushion for this multitude of displaced decorations By the time it had hung around for a week or so it was well past its prime as far as edibility was concerned. Certainly no one was going to eat it when it got to be a month old. After that it became a joke, when was mom going to throw it away? Just to defy my reputation among my offspring for being an anal neatnick I felt the need to keep it hanging around. Yes, at one point it did attract ants. It finally came to rest on the top left corner of the china cabinet, and there it remains going on two years later. I can't throw it away now! It's perfectly preserved and when you blow at it, the pinwheels spin! If only I had pressed it when it still contained a little moisture. Then I could have placed it in a scrapbook.