Cake Fail

So, I promised you a story about Tad’s Batman ice cream cake.

As you can see by this picture, which I also posted yesterday –

– we have a issue with legibility.  And color.  And space.

I ordered the cake the Sunday before the party from the local Dairy Queen (Thrasher’s Corner, for those of you in the know).  I think DQ ice cream cakes are particularly tasty.  I’ve had some quibbles with their decorating before, but since I was getting an edible transfer put on the cake, I didn’t think there would be any issues.  I did order a smaller cake than I usually do – an 8″ round (they don’t usually do rectangular cakes), but again, I wasn’t foreseeing any problems.

Until Ane and I showed up Saturday afternoon to pick the cake up.

The shift manager brought the cake out, and my jaw dropped.

I had requested that the writing say “Happy Birthday Tad” in blue.  Which they had done.  Except that the “Happy Birthday” was written right on the transfer and was almost impossible to see at a distance.  The flash in the picture above did a decent job of highlighting the gel icing, and “Tad” was written on the white of the cake, below the transfer.

When I asked, “What happened?”, the shift manager sort of shrugged and said, “Well, the transfer is kind of large and it took up too much space, so the decorator had to write on top, and you did request the blue writing.”

“But you can’t even SEE it!”  I cried.  “It could at least be in a contrasting color!”

“But you asked for blue,” she replied.

“I realize that, but I wasn’t told that the image was going to be too big for the cake when I ordered it!  Why didn’t anyone call me when this became a problem?  My phone number is on the order!”

Apparently, she realized at this point that I was not going to go quietly with the cake.  “If you have 15 minutes, I can maybe put some red gel on top of the words to make them stand out more,” she offered.

“I don’t have 15 minutes, I have a bag of ice in the trunk of my car,” I snapped.  “If I’d just gotten a call, I would’ve probably told you to just leave the writing off, but now it’s on there and can’t be scraped off.”

At this point, Ane tried to put her two cents’ worth in and say that it wasn’t so bad, but I elbowed her in the ribs and told her to hush.  Mommy was on a rampage.

“I can give you a discount, and I’m really very sorry about this.  You’re right, you should have gotten a phone call.  I usually do the cakes, but the night manager did this one.  I would have called,” the shift manager said desperately.  “And I’ll talk to my manager about this.”

“Good.  I need the cake, and I will take the discount.  But I have to get going, NOW.”

Two minutes later, I was out the door, cake in hand, Ane in tow, having paid $11.80 for a cake that should have cost me $25.95.

Now, I should say that Tad did not care about the writing one bit.  He didn’t even care if his name was on the cake.  All he cared about was that it had Batman on it – which it did.  But it was the principle of the thing that I was fighting for.  That, and the fact that the customer is always right, and for crying out loud, they couldn’t bother with a phone call??

So, note to self for the future – check the size of the transfer picture as relative to the size of the cake next time.  Or just skip the writing altogether.  But always be willing to get what you ordered – or get a substantial discount to make it worth your aggravation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 1:15 am and is filed under Shopping Stories.
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