Recently, I was invited to a social gathering by friends who were expecting their first child. The big event at the festivities would be their announcement whether their unborn child were a boy or girl. Having never experienced this sort of sex-of-a-baby disclosure, my curiosity was naturally aroused. How would they pull this event off?
At the gathering, the crowd gradually grew, and as the guests exchanged pleasantries, we nibbled on a wide variety of appetizers. We carried our plates to long tables set up outside, and eventually the entrée was ready. At this German-themed happening, our hosts served us bratwurst with all the trimmings. Through prearrangements, my food selection was vegetarian Italian sausage, which resembled the reconstituted crook end of a squash, unevenly splashed with brown shoe polish. Not bad, if I ignored its texture and tensile strength that resisted the attempts of my knife and fork against its rubberized skin.
My curiosity over the sex of the baby-to-be grew with each bite of my faux Italian sausage. How would the happy couple announce the news? I imagined they might recite a bogus postdated newspaper article from the Los Angeles Times, cleverly declaring the birth and name of the child. Or perhaps there would be a trumped-up theatrical opening of a highly decorated gift box–from within, the parents would draw out a tiny pair of baby booties in the appropriate sex-identifying baby color. Maybe—just maybe—there would be a sonogram image of the baby in utero, enlarged large enough to see the gender-disclosing details of said baby. I quickly discounted the latter option as being in questionable taste, even at this warm and embracing celebratory event.
So how would they announce the baby-to-be’s as-yet-undisclosed sex?
None of that happened. Instead, the host proclaimed the presentation of a cake—and, suddenly, a moment of inspiration hit me—of course! The cake decorations, I surmised, would happily declare the sex of the child-to-be. Tiny model cars and trucks would announce that the baby would be a boy! Alternatively, the decorative presence of equally tiny dolls would identify the child as a girl! What could be more obviously cute, clever, and informative?
I edged over to the cake table, which a throng of guests already surrounded. Standing on my tiptoes in the back row and holding my iPhone high above my head, I peered over those in front of me, straining to see the cake decorated with a tiny toy truck or doll. To my chagrin—there was nothing there, except for a large and beautiful white-frosted cake. No truck. No car. No doll.
And then it finally hit me. The currently non-gender-identified baby’s sex would be revealed when the couple cut into the cake! Of course! When the cake was sliced with a knife, something embedded in the cake would cleverly identify the sex of the baby. But I quickly recoiled when I imagined the various choices of doohickeys that might give a clue of the baby’s gender. Horrors!
No…now I was certain that, instead, they had tastefully selected a plastic baby boy or girl doll and placed it carefully into the cake prior to cooking, so that when the cake was sliced open, the appropriate doll would reveal the baby’s gender. Yes! That was it! How cute!
But wait! Perhaps the heat from cooking the cake had melted the plastic baby hidden within the cake. And even if not, could slicing into the cake with a knife possibly maim the doll representing their future baby? Good grief! No, no! A thousand times, no! Please, don’t do it! Don’t cut the cake! Just announce the baby’s sex to us verbally! Please! We’ll act just as excited as if you had baked in clever clues or a gender-announcing doll! Don’t go through with this nightmare!
It was too lake. The knife descended, as, hand-in-hand, the couple made the first, horrifying slice into the cake.
I couldn’t look. Please! Please! No hideous amputation of the embedded, perhaps melted plastic baby!
The crowd cheered, “It’s a girl! It’s a girl! Congratulations!”
When I dared look back at the cake, there was no gender-identifying doll in the cake. There was nothing. Nothing but white cake with strawberry filling.
“Strawberry?” I asked my cheering neighbor. “What does strawberry filling have to do with the sex of the baby?”
“Pink,” she responded. “It’s pink. And pink is traditionally, well, a girl’s color.”
“Yeah! Of course! I know that!” I retorted. I turned my head to avoid displaying my own growing pink blush.
I didn’t say it aloud, but I was secretly proud of myself for having figured out what a blueberry filling would have meant.
In life’s social rituals, we don’t get the choice whether we are the smart and clever ones or the duller learners. When we find ourselves among the latter, it’s a good practice to keep a cool head, a closed mouth, and try to be a quick study.
