The A-Team Cake and Buster Dog

        Quite some years ago my wife Marsha and I were able to rescue our son’s birthday cake in a manner that would have made George Peppard and the “A-Team” pretty darn proud.        

         At the time our son Jason turned ten, he and most of the neighbor kids were crazy about the TV series “The A-Team.” The series starred actor George Peppard and the gold-chain-bedecked, Laurence Tureaud - “Mister T” plus several other actors, as hard-fighting, renegade soldiers-of-fortune. Each week this team of modern-day Robin Hoods would rescue downtrodden citizens, using their wits, ingenuity, and maximum Hollywood firepower with blazing guns, car chases, and explosions; just the type of TV series any young boy would enjoy.   

         The team could always escape in Mister T’s seemingly indestructible black van, with the villainous Colonel Decker and his Army jeep left far behind. So, when it came time to pick out our son’s birthday cake, Jason announced that it had to be an A-Team cake!   

         Marsha placed our order for an A-Team decoration with the supermarket’s bakery section, and when she picked up the cake, she was very happy with the results. Across the top of the cake a miniature black van careened on two wheels along a chocolate frosting road. A tiny plastic split-rail fence zigzagged alongside the road which snaked crookedly across green fields and past frosting-puff bushes and plastic trees.       

         Arriving back home, Marsha placed the cake on our china hutch with the cake-box lid propped open to prevent the trees from being pressed down into the cake. We then set about decorating the dining area with balloons, plates for cake and ice cream, and other festive items. With less than a half an hour before the guests were to arrive, disaster struck in the form of my in-law’s dog, Buster.           

         Jason had dutifully walked his grandma and her old dog, Buster, up to the front porch then had gone back down the walk to boss his little brother around and watch for his friends to arrive. Meanwhile up on the porch, as soon as Buster came through the front door, he sidestepped grandma and rushed across the room in a beeline for the cake box! As he thrust his head under the propped-up lid, we all yelled for Buster to stop, and I made a mad dash to grab his collar, but it was too late.           

         As I pulled the dog away from the box, he was licking frosting from his whiskers and there was a deep snout-shaped gouge nibbled in the front edge of the cake. “We could turn the cake around” I said, but Marsha shook her head at this lame suggestion, as she stooped to survey the damage. Grabbing a knife, she cut a “V” into the nibbled area and removed the ruined section of the cake.           

         Marsha rushed to the cupboards, calling out, “Quick, I’ll whip up some frosting while you head to the store! We need some candy rocks that we can use to create a landslide on the front of this cake. And, Grandma, go guard the door, no kids are to come in!”    

         At the store I couldn’t find candy rocks, so I scooped up some large gumdrops, chocolate kisses and anything else I thought would pass for rocks and boulders on a birthday cake. As I reached the check-out stand, right at eye level was a toy that would save the day! Shrink-wrapped on a cardboard backing was a miniature Army jeep and one of those little penny-toy soldiers.

          It wasn’t just any soldier either; it was the aircraft spotter who holds binoculars to his eyes as he scans the skies for the enemy! The perfect soldier for my mission!          

         When I got back, I helped Marsha strategically place candy “boulders” down the face of the newly frosted landslide and I balanced the Army jeep on the "rocks" and frosting rubble below. Marsha repositioned the black van just past a sharp turn in the road, where I pushed over a section of the fence. We finished putting the candles on the cake just as Jason and a crowd of boys rushed in the door.  

         “All right," Jason crowed with satisfaction as he got his first look at the cake, "Guys, check it out! It's the A-Team!"          

         “Hey, look,” laughed one of the guests, “Mister T’s van made the turn, but Colonel Decker didn’t!” The boys all whooped with glee as they spotted the villain standing on a boulder below, next to his crashed jeep, watching through his binoculars as the A-Team, incredibly, once again, escaped.       

         “Eat dust, Decker,” Jason snarled, and the boys all chortled in delight as they gathered around the cake surveying every detail.   

         “Hey, Jason, where did you get this cake?” asked one of the boys, “I want to get one for my next birthday!”          

         Marsha, casting a sidelong glance and a wink at me, told the lad, “Oh, you see, this is a special-order cake, so you’d better have your mother call me.”          

         It was several months before Jason learned the reason that his mom, his grandma and I, had all burst into laughter later that day when he'd asked, "Could Buster have some cake?”

A true story. Copyright 2006 by James Fox, originally edited and published fnasr in The Front Porch periodical.