I had a dummy cake out with my this weekend at my monthly venue and I am astounded by the blatent stupidity of people-children and adults- trying to poke, scratch, tap and knock on my dummy!! I had a tabletop card that was QUITE visable on the top tier that said" YES, I am REAL- Please dont poke me or scratch at my icing!" and "Los padres, refrenan por favor a sus niños de tacto que la pastel exhibe. ¡Gracias!" (in both English and Spanish!)
The few people that read it responded, "but, it's really not real icing, right?" (No, I'm a sadist enjoy lying about it- get a good look at her face and let her know you're booked if she calls you). "why is it hard if it's real?" (Because there's more to life than buttercream- Give me your neck-Let me show you just how strong my arms are from rolling it out). "is that a planter?" (Yes, it is) (Comment made by the same guy who said that $2.50 was too much to pay a "small piece of crap" cookie)


And spousal unit wonders why I am so stressed and looking to take a break

Hahahahaha! LMAO! My husband does stand-up comedy and some of his material isn't this good! Please....anytime you feel like de-stressing, let it out!

Bless your heart.
The world is full of idiots. Smile while thinking i squish your head. Pray they don't procreate anymore. My husband finally understands. He was with me one day as I was explaining the doll cake to a lady. She has the cake & still doesn't understand. No wonder our world is in BIG trouble.

I one hundred percent sympathise and empathise. the same happened to me at a show - people actually reached out and squeezed the cake to see if it was real depsit signs saying please do not touch. Aaargh!! I actually snatched a poking hand away from the cake at the end of the day as I'd lost my rag. I can't imagine the tiny brains in some people's heads. I'm sure if you put it under a plastic dome people would pick it off and prod it.

Back in the days when I made hand crafted soap I had this problem. I would set out dishes with small pieces of soap that people could take to the restroom to try it out. On more than one occasion, despite signs that said "Hand Crafted SOAP" and even a sign that said "Please do not eat the SOAP", I would have people grab it and stick it in their mouth to eat it. (I would try not to laugh too hard, but it sure did serve them right for not reading!) There is a famous quote that says "No one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the general public." or something to that effect. I believe it!!!!!!!!!

LMAO!!!!! You guys are cracking me up!! I wonder if you yourself stuck one finger in it and slapped a sign there "SEE! IT'S REAL. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS TO MY CAKE!!!!" Oh my gosh!!

Now on another note, my 5 year old daughter HAS to stick her little fingers in EVERYTHING!!!!! I'm really working on this! When I make cakes, I put a small bowl of frosting and the scraps on the counter to occupy her need to poke!!

Ok, I have one for you... My (seemingly intelligent, own-his-own-store) older brother came over the other night. He sat down at the table less than a foot away from me and stuck his finger right into a cake I had just finished. I screamed and asked him what the H**L was wrong with him!? He said, "I just wanted to see if it was real." I said, "I see, and seeing as how you are sitting about 8 inches away from the person who you KNOW made it, you felt the best way to determine that was by giving it a rectal exam???!!!" SONOFA&%#@%!!!!

Yesterday I called him and told him Wal-Mart has been having trouble selling their cakes, so they're looking to hire someone to go around to other bakeries and poke their displays so they don't look good and they get less business, and seeing as how he seems to LOVE to do that I naturally thought of him!

Maybe those people were mentally challenged !!! OR
they need to go back to school and learn how to read OR maybe they were just missing a stemcell...
those are the only reasons I can think of ,why they would still do it inspite of your friendly little sign..

I've come to realize the world is shot to H***.
I work in a restaurant and even though the guests pay my tips, they are real idiots most of the time and generally not worth what they gave me.
This is no different in any place, business, whatever. Do people not THINK anymore? People just don't care about others property. I give up. I usually come home still shaking my head at the dunces I've just encountered. sounds like these people are everywhere!!

Sometimes I wonder....I had to move my chocolate dipped marshmellows on a stick behind the glass counter in my shop because people didn't understand the sign that said "Handmade Chocolate Dipped Marshmellows $2.50" and would pick them up....AND FREAKIN' SQUEEZE THEM! HELLO?? I finally got so fed up I started making people pay for them...then I got fed up argueing with them for destroying my product and expecting not to pay... so I put them behind the glass case. Who squeezes a marshmellow? I also had a lady open one of my candy jars (with unwrapped candy) and use her hand to pull out some gummy bears. Ok...I can't talk about this anymore....

Maybe for next time, you can make a small, plain dummy to sit next to the "real" dummy, and next to it place a bucket with a sign attached that says:

"If you feel the need to poke the cake, please deposit $1.00 in this bucket and poke the small one. It's made with the same icing as the large one, and will feel the same when you stick your finger in it!"

The world is full of people who don't think before they act. It's unfortunate that so many of them like to poke cakes!

Maybe you'll make enough from your "poking cake" to buy some adult beverages on the way home, to make it easier to forget about the cake pokers!

Laura.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!! My daughter came in to find out what the heck was so funny! Melvira, oh my gosh, can I buy that transcript for my husband to use in one of his bits on stage!?? hahahahahaha!!!!!!! And SweetConfChef, I was laughing so hard I was crying picturing those people squeezing a freakin' marshmellow on a stick!

I hope this thread goes on for awhile! These stories are so great! Melvira, I will look forward to posts after your brother's next visit!

I luv this site!

What is amazing to me is that most of the people that poked my dummies were adults. The children seem to know better than the adults!

Hey Debi, he is welcome to it... I have limitless material! I have actually considered a career in stand up, everyone has always told me I should do it, but the PRESTIGE of making these cakes for ungrateful little tweaks that won't pay half of what their worth... how do you replace that?

I can't believe it.. no, wait, I can, because I actually saw it happen at a cake show where I entered a cake. Even though there were plenty of signs around the cakes saying "Please, do not touch the cakes", some people would just poke them or lean all the way over them... I thought of standing by my cake and start growling at people like a p....o.. chihuahua if anybody attempted to touch my cake. However, this was not the worst it happened on this show. The cakes that spent the night at the mall the night before the show started were vandalised. The security guard caught a family of 5 destroying some of the cakes. They knocked a few cakes to the floor, poked other cakes, broke gumpaste figurines... Can you freaking believe that? I was so relieved I didn't take my cake until the day off and felt so bad for the poor people who arrived on the day of the judging to find their cakes destroyed... Some people are just too much.

Inma

I had problems with that at shows too. People would tap on the bows and flowers too and I was always afraid they would break right there. grrr.

I had problems with that at shows too. People would tap on the bows and flowers too and I was always afraid they would break right there. grrr.

That was their idea of family night? SICK!! I guess that goes to show that there are bad people out there, and stupid people who will just go along with them.

And now I'm just scared because I have been busting my hump on dummies for my very first cake booth on Sunday. Ergh... I will get angry if someone does that to me. And they wouldn't like me when I'm angry! (Eyes turning red... muscles bulging...)

Melvira....STOP IT!!! YOU'RE KILLING ME!!

I will watch for you on the next "Last Comic Standing". I'm sure you'll be in the finals with DH!!

Man, I know what you mean!!! In the Oklahoma show last year, I had an all-buttercream sculpture that won a first-place ribbon. I made SURE the Do Not Touch sign was right next to it, but sure enough, TWO people stuck fingers in it. There was a photo of it in American Cake Decorating with the fingerholes in it. I was so unhappy about it. There was also a cute cake of a box of buttered popcorn, and we caught a woman trying to rub off the "butter" to see if it was real. GRR! I snapped at her to stop touching the cakes.

At our next cake show here in Texas in the spring, I suggested to our cake club that instead of relying on just the Do Not Touch signs, we should have t-shirts or aprons printed that say "Touch the Cakes and DIE!"

{I wasn't really kidding about that, either!}



Deanna

wow I had no idea people were so gutsy.....

you could always put a sign next to the dummy that sais " if you poke it you buy it" and if you cach anyone poking it charge them extra!

Wouldn't that be a hoot to have t-shirts that say "touch the cake and die"!!! Toomuchcake....you are too much! I bet they all thought you were kidding when you said that....
I would have said "I AM serious!!

You know what I do remember noticing a cake a grocery store had on display just full of finger pokes....but still at a cake show????? Even at a booth??? I guess I can understand it more at a grocery store (though it still is bad)....

LOL SOME PEOPLE! There's a whole collection of morons at this site: www.customerssuck.com - PLENTY of stupid people fill these boards! I've posted it a couple of times but I"m not sure anyone has visited - there are horror stories there (called War stories) about the stupidity of people - it's amazing. I always wonder "How did you survive this long?" I mean there are some people who makes mistakes every now and then or do something stupid every now and then - but then there are people who do the dumbest things imaginable and you just wonder how they've survived so long..... AND why do we keep allowing them to breed? I haven't had anyone poke one of my cakes yet - I think it's b/c they already know if they touch it they may die! Although I do have a family friend that loves to come and eat my icing or cake scraps or whatever I have at the moment... so I hide stuff sometimes so she can't get to it! Isn't that awful?? So sorry you had to deal w/ the pokers!

I've mentioned the t-shirt idea several times to the cake club, but they're not backing it.... I guess they've never had a finger-holed cake picture in a national magazine before.

At one show, some teenage boys were looking at the cakes and saying "Are they real?" and after a weekend of shooing pokers away from the cakes, my husband snapped back, "No, they're imaginary!"



Deanna

I am so glad that it's not just me! I did cakes for a kindergarden fundraising stall last year and the other helper was a professional sign writer, so we had this HUGE 2 metre long brightly coloured sign saying "CAKES" right above our heads as well as ones by our right and left............You guessed it.. a middle aged man stood right in front of my table and stuck his thumb down into my ladybird cake..I mean kept on pressing down until he had actually hit cake!!!!!!!!! Then he said with SURPRISE Oh I didn't know it was a cake!?
If looks could fry, that guy would have turned straight into bacon!!oooh! I am still upset over it! What more are we supposed to do?

Ya have me crackin' up laughing so hard! I know there are a lot of stupid people out there, and I think I would be a hand smacker if someone kept touching my cake at a cake show.

Maybe you need to make your own shirt that says 'Touch my cake and DIE!" and wear it if the group isn't going to. Iron on's are great for T-shirts. Maybe you could get a picture of Mr. T and have it say "I pity the fool that touches my cake!".

I actually did a birthday cake last week for a small group at the local skating rink and I swear I think almost every adult had to go over and feel the icing and the FBCT. I didn't eat any of it after thinking that 20 adults and 15 kids had just taken off their shoes, put on rented skates, some even changed their socks they had worn all day, skated and touched the rails, lockers, and other surfaces in the place, and then touched the cake. I thought 'How nasty! All of the germs these people just put on my cake, and now they haven't washed their hands either!" Just gross. I was the only one that didn't eat it, which I'm sure didn't look too good since the baker wouldn't eat her own cake.

I just don't understand why there is a need to touch and feel our cakes.

Maybe when we see them poking the cakes we should poke them back and when they say : What the are you doing? Then we say: Oh, I just didn't know if you were real... I mean, who in their right mind would poke a cake when there is a sign that says not to? You and more .... I think that should help.

Inma