It’s all I sing on the cape…
Long-time (pre-blog) readers may recall this beautiful example of misunderstood intentions:
“Jen,” who first circulated this product of Wal-Mart’s custom bakery, was subsequently inundated with other amusing examples… enough others to occasion the founding of Cake Wrecks, a blog devoted to postings like “The Problem with Phone Orders“:
[answering phone] “Cakey Cake Bakery, Jill speaking! How can I help you?”
“Hi, I need to order a cake for my boss. We have a photo of him playing golf that we’d like to put on it, though – can you do that?”
“Of course! Just bring the photo in on a USB drive and we’ll print it out here.”
“Great, I’ll bring it by this afternoon.”
Later…
“Hey, Jill, what am I putting on this cake?”
“Oh, check the counter; I left the jump drive out for you there.”
[calling from the back room] “Really? This is what they want on the cake?”
“Yeah, the customer just brought it in.”
“Okey dokey!”
As we think twice about phoning it in, we might spare an optimistic thought for Sir Thomas “Man for All Seasons” More, born on this date in 1428. More was the English Lord Chancellor who refused to recognize the ecclesiastical supremacy of Henry VIII– and was thus executed by Henry (and canonized by the Catholic Church) for his allegiance to the Pope.
But More was also the author of Utopia, the very avatar of positive thinking. Indeed, as Oscar Wilde observed, “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth glancing at.”
Woodcut of Utopia by Ambrosius Holbein, for the 1518 edition
Read Utopia online here
Oh, and Happy Dickens’ Birthday!