But, when Alice took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was horribly disfigured. She said, "Oh dear, there's no time bake another cake."
This cake was so important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church, and in her new community of new friends. So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake. Alice found it in the bathroom; A roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in and then covered it with icing. Not only did the finished product look beautiful, it looked perfect!
Before she left the house to drop the cake by the church and head for work, Alice woke her daughter Amanda and gave her some money and specific instructions to be at the bake sale the minute it opened at 9:30, and to buy this cake and bring it home.
When the daughter arrived at the sale, she found that the attractive, perfect cake had already been sold! Amanda grabbed her cell phone and called her mother. Alice was horrified. She was beside herself. Everyone would know! What would they think of her? She would be ostracized, talked about, ridiculed.
That night Alice was lying awake in bed thinking about people pointing their fingers at her and talking about her behind her back.
The next day Alice promised herself that she would try not to think about the cake and she would attend the fancy luncheon/bridal shower at the home of a friend of a friend and try to have a good time there. She did not really want to attend because the hostess was a real snob who more than once had looked down her nose at Alice because Alice was a single parent and not from one of the founding families of Tuscaloosa. Having already RSVP'd she could not think of a believable excuse to stay away.
The meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust Old South...
To Alice's horror, the cake in question was presented for dessert! Alice felt the blood drain from her body when she saw it being brought in. She started out of her chair to rush to the hostess and tell her all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!" "Thank you", said the snobby hostess, "I baked it myself!"
Alice sat back and smiled, "GOD IS GOOD"
"While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats." Mark Twain