Meanwhile, my dad was still a teenager at heart. At ten, I was reminding him that a present needed to be purchased for Mom and a cake ordered. I suggested that he find a better present than the one she'd received the year before. He'd brought a big box into the room and she's squealed, "Is it a puppy?" like she was a teenager.
It wasn't a puppy. It was a TV. And it ended up on his side of bed, where he has enjoyed it far more than she ever would.
He picked up the cake for her 35th birthday, but didn't look at it until he took it out of its box later that night, after dinner. We all wore birthday hats and she seemed to be doing okay until the cake was unveiled.
"Happy 60th, Mom!" it read. She began to cry, thinking it was a mean joke my father was pulling on her. Turns out, he'd just picked up the wrong cake. Her tears dried as she imagined some happy 60-year-old lady whose cake wished her a Happy 35th.
The tears threatened to reappear when my father realized he'd forgotten to buy candles. The only candles we had were the big dinner-table kind and the candles we'd saved from PJ's 7th birthday back in June.
Ninja Turtle Candles.
Not only was it addressed to the wrong person and topped with children's candles, but my dad thought it was an ice cream cake, and so he'd put it in the freezer. We had to wait for it to thaw before we could eat it.
It could have gone either way, but we all ended up laughing wildly while Mom blew out the half-melted Ninja Turtle candles on her 60th Birthday cake, and it's become one of those family stories we tell to each other or joke about: "Hey, at least we don't have to use the Ninja Turtle Candles," which, by the way, we still have.
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