Let Them Race Cake

To inaugurate a hospital or new building, one might cut a ribbon. To christen a ship, smash some champagne or three-buck-chuck on its bow instead of drinking the perfectly good bottle of booze. The Eastern Orthodox Church dunks infants in baptismal fonts brimming with olive oil, and boy, National Geographic has some haunting pictures of that.

But what if you’re a casino that’s just built a six-story parking garage and you want to commemorate the occasion with more than a few yards of 4″ wide red satin and a comically-oversized pair of scissors wielded by the nearest politician up for election next month?

Build a car out of cake and race it, of course! (Warning: Article viewing limit)

Of course. Silly me.

I would complain about waste and decadence here, and would feel smugly self-satisfied to reference the Antoinette quote: “Let them eat cake” as a brilliant masterstroke of social commentary. However, the article mentioned the cake cars (car cakes?) were donated to a local homeless outreach organization following the event.

I would complain about what a waste of time and resources. However, in this long, drawn-out struggle in a Covid-19 world, it is one way people are coping. Celebrate being able to get out of bed this morning! Celebrate your first cuppa of the day! Celebrate the little (well, not so little) things like that massive project you began two years ago is now complete and can function as an outdoor gathering area on its sixth floor while everyone parks on the five floors below!

I would complain about the uselessness of the world record the casino broke and how it’ll fade away into obscurity after its five minutes of fame as a publicity stunt. However, I am a fan of Imgur and spend time in appreciation of the memes and content created there, soon to fade into the unfamiliar with the constantly changing culture.

And can we all just take a moment, whatever conclusions we draw from this, whatever opinions we hold, to admire the mind of men and women who looked at a car and thought, “What if you could have your cake…and drive it too?”