things that are better than cake:

I work in a relatively small office - an office that is unnaturally fixated with celebrating the office birthdays once a month ("3:30 pm, first Thursday of the month! hope you can make it!"). We've been known to go ahead with the birthday celebration when all of the people who actually have a birthday during the month are on vacation, out to lunch, at a meeting, wherever - big deal...any excuse to celebrate.

With cake.

Expensive cake.

$50 cake.

This is not a huge sheet cake to feed 150 or a beautifully conceived piece of melt-in-your-mouth, confectionary genius. It's just a plain, round, layer cake from the bakery down the road...I peeked between the layers for the hidden gold once...it wasn't there.

Problem is, I don't like cake. Ok, I might make a concession for a made-from-a-Betty-Crocker-box Cherry Chip cake the way mom used to bake it, but to generalize, I just. don't. like. cake.

The office doesn't understand.

"You know, Heather, if you're eating it to celebrate a birthday, the calories don't count."

("Don't assume i'm one of those calorie-averse types. I LOVE my calories. Just not in the form of cake." )

"Look Heather, we ordered the white cake with raspberries this time instead of chocolate, so you can have some, too!"

("It's not the CHOCOLATE I dislike. It's the CAKE. Ok, and the chocolate. I don't like chocolate.")

"Hey Heather, are you sure you don't want even a little piece? There's ice cream to go with it!"

("I know what your'e doing and it won't work! They taught me about people like you in D.A.R.E! Bandwagon tactics! Broken record! Coersion!!! I won't fall for it! I won't eat the cake!!!! NO! NO! NO!!!!)

Welllll - now it's my birthday month. This Thursday at 3:30, I'll be celebrated. Just me.

I've been so unabashedly, predictably anti-cake for so long it's no surprise that they sent Troy to my desk this morning as a...cake ambassador, to find out what I'd like in lieu of cake. Trouble is, the "in lieu of cake" applies to the entire office. In honor of Heather's June Birthday, NO ONE will eat cake. No pressure.

It took me most of the morning, actually, to come up with some viable alternatives. Things--other than cake--that everyone can enjoy:

CHEESEBURGERS. Mmmmm. probably one of my favorite things. and french fries. I kind of like the idea of inflicting a tower of cheeseburgers on everyone - the vegans, the vegetarians, dairy-phobics - all of them.

All things sour and sugary and gummi...I'm a candy fiend...so in the spirit of celebrating right along with Heather, I suggested a pinata. Or at the very least, a conference table full of assorted candy-things...hershey's bars, licorice, Sour Patch Kids - whatever. I like it all.

But I don't want to hit the pinata. Not my style.

Guacamole is rather difficult to put a candle in and serve up in any pretty way, but it's another of my favorite things...so I'd imagine if you slapped down a big bowl of guac, big bowl of salsa and some tortilla chips, I'd be pretty happy...and I'd love to see them all stand around and try to make witty small talk about tortilla chips the way they try to make witty small talk about the cake.

I like champagne. And breakfast burritos. And cinnamon rolls. And anything with cilantro.

Coconut ice cream is pretty tasty. Same goes for most things involving butterscotch, but that's a little ambiguous. I like oatmeal cookies and those big, awful Costco muffins...and powdered sugar mini-donuts (that could be a fun party trick...watch Heather devour an entire box of hostess powdered sugar donuts!).

A tower of anything sounds fun to me...if it can be stacked, layered and then otherwise disassembled after singing "Happy Birthday" it's all that much more fun.

Three days to go...my suggestions were taken under advisement and will be passed up the line to those ultimately responsible for deciding how we'll celebrate...me.

I'll keep ya posted.