The one exception that I make maybe once a year is carrot cake. But it has to be a perfectly prepared carrot cake, which means no nuts, no raisins, no chunks, no excessive oiliness, and the cream cheese frosting better not be thicker than a piece of foam core.
My husband's birthday occurred this week, and we have been celebrating in stages for the last few days; dinner out one night, grilled steak and cake on another, party and gifts on yet another. It's like he's an eight year old again. Anyway, I purchased a carrot cake at a shiny new HyVee that recently opened near our house, and as a result, have spent the last two days, let's see... how can I put this in proper medical terms... oh I know... pissing out my asshole while wincing in extreme abdominal pain.
Once I realized that I had purchased what was obviously a frosting coated cylinder of death, but before the odorous post-cake repercussions had set in, I tweeted at HyVee:
And they actually replied:
Of course, HyVee! That sounds like the PERFECT solution to my problem! Let's try ANOTHER terrible carrot cake, just to see if maybe I happened to purchase the one dud! And besides, this scenario is highly improbable, since I'm pretty sure that every single one of their carrot cakes contains raisins and nuts, which is basically like saying "Here, have this cake filled with poison and rocks and little nuggets of chewy rabbit shit."
After managing to stay out of the bathroom for five consecutive hours and sleeping off and on for about eleven, I decided that I would, in fact, contact customercare@hy-vee.com:
To: customercare@hy-vee.com
Subject: Worst. Cake. Ever.
Hi there.
I am contacting you per the instructions I received via twitter, after mentioning an awful cake that I purchased at HyVee. Please excuse the delay, as I am just now finally feeling well enough to sit at my computer.
I purchased a carrot cake at the HyVee located at 9409 Zane Ave. N. in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on Friday, January 26th. The cake was $19.99 and was labeled “best if used by February 3.” Since I was planning on serving this cake on Monday, January 30, I assumed it would be edible. I brought it home, put it in the refrigerator for the weekend, and then pulled it out on Monday.
The cake looked amazing. It really did. It almost looked fake, it looked so amazing. The multiple layers of carrot cake, with perfectly placed blobs of frosting separating each layer… it reminded me of a cake that was prepared solely for picture taking purposes, all carefully crafted and coated with inedible lacquer. Well, guess what? That’s exactly how it tasted. It was like it had been dried out to match the same texture and taste of a kitchen sponge that had been used to mop up raw chicken juices for three weeks straight. And although no where in the description does it mention the inclusion of raisins and nuts, IT HAS RAISINS AND NUTS! I guess I should’ve flipped the box upside down and squinted at the 1pt font ingredient list, because then I would’ve noticed that the cake contains raisins and nuts, which are basically the surest way to ruin anything.
After sawing through the cake, serving up a couple slices to my kids and skeptically taking a bite myself, I instantly knew within the first half a bite that it was wrong on every level. It didn’t taste like cake. It didn’t even taste like food. It tasted like something that you’d buy for someone that you hated. It wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t soft, it tasted like sadness. I took the plates from my kids and chucked them - plus the entire cake - into the trash, hoping that the bite still wreaking havoc on my taste buds wasn’t going to have negative repercussions.
Well, even though I hoped, I realized on Tuesday at 5am that it wasn’t going to be a good day. Sharp stomach pains, several trips to the bathroom, filmy sweats and fatigue plagued me all day yesterday, and continues into today. Coincidentally, yesterday was a birthday party that had been scheduled for my husband (yes, this carrot cake was supposed to be his birthday cake). It was so much fun to attend and sit there, sipping ginger ale, while everyone else bowled and played ping pong and ate chips and guacamole! I had a great time sitting there, when I wasn't sprinting to the bathroom every 14 minutes! Thanks, HyVee carrot cake!
In addition to the inedibility and obvious spoilage of the cake, my daughter, before I chucked the sucker into the trash, looked at the top of the cake and - with her amazing contact lens assisted vision - said “Oh look, there are black hairs on the cake! Gross!” Sure enough, I looked and there were three short, wirey, frizzled looking hairs clinging to the blobs of cream cheese frosting, nestled right next to a few carrot shavings. No, I am not making this up. HyVee sold me a rotten hairy carrot cake.
So while I am obviously irritated about the money I wasted on a cake, I am actually more irritated about the fact that I got sick and basically missed my husband’s $900+ birthday party, and the most irritated that, after years with zero disappointment, I strayed from Lunds & Byerlys bakery.
Sincerely,
the Mean Mom
To my surprise, Hy-Vee replied with the following:
Yes, that's exactly right, HyVee. I was disappointed with the quality. I just used a lot of extra words to express those feelings.
Later that afternoon, the nice manager man from the Hy-Vee that sold me the Worst Cake Ever contacted me via a phone call and wondered if I'd be home for a little while. I'm like "Uh, yeah, since I still have to be near a bathroom." About a half hour later, he appeared at my front door with a bottle of wine, a giant vase of flowers and a very generous gift card. He apologized profusely, I forgave him, and then I said "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to use the bathroom."
Lesson learned: if you end up pissing out of your asshole after eating something funky, email customercare@hy-vee.com.
