Story-A-Day #38: Patti's Cakes

PATTI'S CAKES

She did the same thing every year, and every year, she promised herself it would be the last. The personal touch for Christmas was a great idea in theory, but it always left her shattered and exhausted, unsure about the worth of her efforts.

Last year she had made half a dozen different sauces and packaged them in individual jars. It had been three solid days of chopping, slicing, stewing, puréeing, dicing, boiling, and canning. The results had been stupendous, and the raves she had received made it all worthwhile, but she was determined not to put herself through it all again.

This year, she was baking; a task no less burdensome in the time it demanded. It would be fun, she told herself. It’s a zen experience. It wasn’t zen. It was gobs of melted chocolate everywhere. It was trails of flour throughout the kitchen and dining room. It was fishing for egg shells and chopping nuts and candy canes. Baking was just as bad as she remembered it being exactly one year ago, which is why she had decided to make sauces last year. Sauces proved to be as big a pain in the ass and now she was back to baking and promising herself that next year, everyone would be receiving thoughtfully impersonal gift cards.

As the sugary treats piled up around her, and the Christmas themed tins slowly filled with a bounty of delights, she realized something though. She was in the zone right now, that place where multitasking became a singular action. Everything had started clicking and as she removed trays, filled cooling racks, and packed treats; as she piled new items onto baking sheets and filled the oven, everything was clicking.

This was what had been missing from the past few years. This impenetrable zone where the action was almost inaction and everything just was – she was a well-oiled machine chugging smoothly along.

This was zen, and the reason she had become a baker in the first place, for these moments where business and pleasure did mix. It was that perfect place where everything operated by instinct. She deserved a glass of wine for her effortless effort. She reached for the bottle at the back of the counter and brought it forward with a happy laugh.

As she turned to reach for her glass, the wine bottle connected with a bowl on the counter. The world went into slow motion and she watched, horrified, as the bowl full of smashed candy canes tumbled to the floor.

Next year, gift cards.