Alice, a woman whose organizational skills were about as sharp as a marshmallow, had promised a cake for the annual church ladies’ bake sale. The theme this year? “Heavenly Delights.” Irony, as it turned out, was the main ingredient in Alice’s contribution.
The day of the bake sale dawned, and Alice – who’d spent the previous day perfecting her interpretive dance of the Macarena – remembered her commitment with the panicked shriek of a startled squirrel. It was 2 pm, and the bake sale started at 3.
Forget a meticulously crafted three-tiered masterpiece, Alice was facing a culinary crisis of biblical proportions. She dove into her kitchen like a caffeinated ferret, a whirlwind of flour and frantic energy. She grabbed whatever ingredients she could find – a lone can of peaches, a bag of slightly stale marshmallows, a jar of mysteriously lumpy jam that had been lurking in the back of the fridge since the Clinton administration.
She threw it all into a bowl, stirred with the desperate energy of someone trying to outrun a swarm of angry bees, and shoved the resulting concoction into the oven. She set the timer for what she hoped was the right amount of time (she’d lost track of time somewhere between the Macarena and the realization of her baking transgression).
The timer buzzed. Alice, her hair resembling a startled bird’s nest, cautiously opened the oven door.
Inside, nestled amongst the slightly charred peaches and surprisingly resilient marshmallows, wasn’t a cake.
It was an angel.
Not a metaphorical angel, mind you. A literal, feathery, six-winged angel, shimmering faintly with a golden glow. It looked remarkably like a cross between a particularly fluffy meringue and a cherub who’d had a bit too much glitter glue.
Alice stared, speechless. The angel blinked slowly, then offered her a tiny, perfectly formed peach slice.
“Slightly burnt,” it whispered, its voice like the tinkling of wind chimes. “But the marshmallows are divine.”
Alice, ever the pragmatist, grabbed the angel and its accompanying peach slice and rushed to the bake sale. The ladies were, understandably, a little bewildered. But after a few hesitant bites (and a prayer or two), they declared Alice’s “Heavenly Delight” the most unique and delicious item at the sale.
Alice, basking in the unexpected success of her culinary catastrophe, decided to stick to interpretive dance. Baking, she decided, was best left to the angels. Or, at least, angels slightly better equipped than she was.
