What Men Talk About

I overheard a conversation on Saturday (at the triple birthday party for two of my nieces and one nephew), that amused me so much I have to share it.

My sister-in-law (the mother of all three kids with the November birthdays) is quite an amazing baker, so, there were three kinds of cake at the party - chocolate, banana and carrot. Each cake was brightly decorated with her homemade frosting. Her husband, my brother-in-law, J, had assisted in the frosting of the cakes, just as my Husband assists me in the frosting of baked goods in OUR house. (My sister-in-law has more talent in the area of decorating - her cakes look better than mine, hands down. But, mine still taste good and are usually nicely decorated.) (My step-dad is also a pretty good cake decorator assistant, as he assists my mom whenever she does a wedding cake or a christening cake. I have a theory that men married to cake bakers have no choice but to become decent cake decorators themselves.)

One of the other dads, at the party, a man we shall refer to as Paul (not his real name) is quite a cake decorator in his own right, and does his kids cakes by HIMSELF, without the assistance of their mom.

So, as we were sitting around a table, digging into three kinds of fabulous cake, the conversation at one end of the table (made up of my brother-in-law J, Husband, and Paul, and my father-in-law) turned to cake frosting. They were each drinking a Molson, and the conversation went something like this:

Paul: I really think the Wilton parchment papers for making bags are superior to any other parchment paper bags that I have tried, but, I like the tips from [store I never heard of]. They are good tips at half the price.

Brother-in-law: Well, I just did the writing on the cake with a small slit in the bag, I didn't use a tip. Of course, I practiced a bunch of times, on a plate, 'til I got the writing to look the way I wanted, before I actually did the writing on the cake.

Husband: We need to get some bags and tips because right now we are using this really horrible product from Tupperware that is next to impossible to use and impossible to clean.

Paul: Did she (meaning sister-in-law) put some Almond Extract in this frosting?

At this point, my father-in-law, looking at each of them in turn like they were completely insane, slapped his hand on the table and said, "BOYS!!! We are MEN!! MEN!! We talk about BEER and TURKEY HUNTING and POKER and WOMEN WITHOUT ENOUGH CLOTHES ON! We do not talk about cake decorating and almond extract!!" Then he looked at the waitress and told her to bring some Budweiser before his sons had a tupperware party.

It was really kind of darn funny. :-)