Musings of Me

The King's Cake

Friday at the office dawned beautifully. One of the lawyers brought in breakfast, I was wearing jeans, and I had no faxes, emails, nor voicemails to mar my peaceful morning. As I sat daydreaming about what I would do during Carnival and buffing my nails (not buffing so much as using scissors to eradicate a hangnail), The FedEx guy brought up the packages.

There was one package that caused me to shove the scissors to the side and take notice.

This box was covered in cartoon-like scrawls, with a big print label marked "King's Cake." Intrigued, I asked who sent it. FedEx didn't know. A few more discreet inquiries later, the addressee didn't know, either. Not that it mattered. I was simply happy because we had a cake in the office.

While I was attempting to use my special Receptionist-vision to see through the box and determine the flavor, Christy (a Rep) walked by and stopped, amazed. "That is entirely inappropriate!!" she exclaimed, shaking her head and continuing, "I wonder what flavor it is. They can be really good."

Before I could puzzle out why a cake would be inappropriate, Nancy (Agency) walked by. "Wow! A King's Cake! I wonder who sent it." perplexed at the responses elicited by the cake, I decided to take the prerogative to get to the bottom of it. I WANT TO KNOW (I am relentless in pursuit of knowledge- unless it is an sn1 or sn2 type organic chemistry-type knowledge).

"Nancy, what is a King's Cake?" I asked. She looked at me, somewhat surprised. I doubt anyone in the South has ever asked what a King's Cake is, I guess. "Well, it is as holiday cake, served around Mardi Gras time. It usually has some fruit in it {I deflated a bit at the fruit-instead-of-chocolate part}, and a baby."

"WHAAT?!!" My mind was in the gutter. I don't know why it occurred to me that people would eat a cake made of babies, but that was my first thought. I must have looked horrified, because she quickly continued "A FIGURINE baby. It is a symbolic religious cake that bestows luck on whoever eats the slice with the figurine inside. It represents the baby Jesus, the King."

"OOOhhHh." Hence the name, King's Cake. I totally get it.

My thoughts immediately came in the following order:
1. Religion in the office is a sticky topic regardless of flavor.
2. If that figurine is plastic, I wonder which chemicals are leached into the cake.
3. I don't want that piece.
4. I am a closet nerd, without the closet.
5. Is it, or isn't it chocolate?

Well, it wasn't chocolate, but we ate it anyway. It is more accurately described as a large cream cheese Danish. Not worth the second piece, but well worth watching another lawyer nearly choke on baby Jesus. Happily, both lawyer and plastic infant are fine.

I like this tradition.

posted by Jill @ 8:20 PM