Baking a cake for the twins’ bake sale at school should have been easy. Thousands of moms did it every year. At least that’s what Winnifred told herself as she threw the cake mix into the grocery basket along with orange juice, yogurt, and the cookies she suddenly had a craving for. Cravings were a stress thing she was very familiar with.

Her first clue that things weren’t going to go as planned should have been the fact that there was no money in her account when she tried to cash out with her debit card. The money should have been there – she’d just been to the bank to make a deposit. So she dug in her purse for cash to pay for her groceries and then went straight back to the bank. As it turned out, someone had stolen her PIN number. She filled out a bunch of forms and got a new bank card, and the bank reassured Winnifred that she would get her money back within the next few days. So off she went home.

Winnifred read the instructions carefully. She preheated the oven and added the exact amount of water and eggs to the mix that the recipe on the side of the box called for. But when it came time to pour the batter into the pan, she realized she had no pan. Of course she didn’t – she wasn’t the sort of mom who baked. So off she went to the store again. This time, she had to really scrape the bottom of her purse for change, since she forgot that she had no money in her bank account.

Finally, Winnifred got home and managed to bake the cake. The kids got off the bus and came clamoring through the door just as she was finishing off the icing.

“There!” she said to her twin girls. She turned the cake for them to admire her work. “You can take this to school tomorrow.”

“But Mom,” one of the twins said, “the bake sale was today.”

That night, Winnifred enjoyed cake with her cookies.

***
This story was prompted by a Story A Day, where our prompt for today was “when your character is like you.” I hate baking!! 😀