The Minnesota Farm Woman

Parents were put on this earth to embarrass their children, and I know I did my share. My darling daughter will be 32 this month, and hasn’t rolled her eyes at me for a long while. That will come again in time, perhaps as I get older and lose that “filter” that makes one think before opening one’s mouth, or perhaps it will be today. Teenagers don’t have much sense of humor when it comes to their parents. She didn’t appreciate it when I would snatch the phone off the hook if the time was even one minute after 10 p.m. to tell her friends that she wasn’t allowed phone calls after 10 p.m. She appreciated it even less when I wore rubber hillbilly teeth to pick her up from middle school and gave a big smile and a wave to everyone in the parent pick-up area. She refused to get in the car one morning when I was wearing my sweat pants and slippers to drive her to school. Sheesh, you would think we were going to visit the queen or something! She hasn’t heard the story about the cake, which happened exactly 32 years ago this week. I was near the end of my pregnancy when my coworkers invited me to a surprise bachelorette party for one of our friends. I lived just down the street from a wonderful little neighborhood bakery which was known for delicious cakes as well as the best cheese danish this side of New York City and sausage biscuits that could bring tears of joy to a pregnant woman’s eyes. I was in there a lot. They made special order cakes, too, for bachelorette parties. They baked and decoated them fresh to order, and stored them in the back room until they were picked up, because they were….er…let’s just say they were anatomically correct. We all signed up for a dish to bring, and since I lived the closest to the bakery, I told everyone about the special cake and said it would be my treat for the bride-to-be’s party. They tried to tell me it would be too much trouble for someone in my delicate condition, but I insisted. I made arrangements with the bakery to pick it up the morning of the party, never thinking that the doughnut and sausage biscuit crowd would be lined up that time of the day. There were a lot of smiles that morning and probably talk around the office water coolers about a hugely pregnant woman who picked up a large cake box with a peek-a-boo window showing what was inside. I mistakenly thought it would come wrapped in plain brown paper. I barely made it out of the door with the large belly, that cake box and a bag of assorted goodies for my breakfast. After all, I was eating for two. Even more embarrasing was when I got to the “bachelorette party”only to find out that it was actually a surprise baby shower for me. The table looked lovely with pink and blue streamers and that cake in all his glory. There are pictures, but you’ll never see them. She wasn’t actually around to see it, but when my daughter reads this story, she might laugh, she might roll her eyes, or she just might tell you that this is not half as bad as the time I made her boyfriend drive me for miles (so I could make sure he was a safe driver) before I let her get into a car with him. Believe me, I made sure the brakes and seat belts were in working order, too.