Most moms, aunts and grandmas know that very few children, uncles or grandpas like coconut. Not since monkeys discovered bananas has any great coconut revival come to pass. So, one might ask: why would I put coconut on the cupcakes for a school bake sale, knowing full well that the most sure-fire way to kill a money-making project is to sprinkle the little white stuff on baked goods? My answer: Because it was there.
Popping out at me from the other baking ingredients on my shelf was the aging bag of flaked coconut. My thinking process was simply like the why-does-one-climb-a-mountain-because-it-was-there process; the inner artist in me rationalized that coconut on a cupcake might achieve the same attention-grabbing notoriety that gold leaf enjoyed on an expensive, hand-carved frame; the latter definitely invites comment and very often commands a higher price than its more mundane counterparts. Of course in my current role of room mother, I was fully aware that my creativity could sabotage a portion of the expected revenue from the sale. But the inner artist won out, so I liberally sprinkled the little white flakes on half of the batch. The opportunity to provide a bit of amusing yet harmless, insignificant but personally satisfying, artistic creations overcame any basic, room mother rationale.
I arrived at the sale, deposited my wares, and took my turn behind the cash box, watching and waiting……Sure enough! When the crowd thinned out and the last Excedrin tablet had been emptied from the parent-teacher center’s first aid kit, seven of the coconut group still sat there.
Baking for a school fund raiser had opened up an entirely new arena for this latent rebel! Had I not estimated with 99% accuracy that my mother would never discover an unmade bed in the one daughter’s home located 180 miles north of the Bay? Slowly, I was establishing this penchant for amusing opportunities and the bake sale had only broadened the spectrum for ever new adventures in my stream of conscious minutia. Gathering up my daughter and the remaining cupcakes, we returned home. I slept well that night. Excedrin really works.
