Cake testing with Nate

My daughter and I went to St. Louis recently to help my youngest son and his fiancee with their wedding plans. The bride-elect had arranged cake tasting appointments at a couple bakeries, visits to tuxedo shops and a stop to look at wedding invitations. Interested, but feeling a bit unnecessary, we tagged along.
At the first bakery the manager served us a miniature top layer of a wedding cake simply decorated and filled – half with raspberry and half with strawberry. We sat at a linen covered table, ate with real china and a heavy, silver dinner party fork. (They only forgot the coffee.)
My daughter and son, his fiancee and I nibbled at the cake – we had another bakery to visit and calories to watch for perfect wedding day fits. We left knowing the style of cake the bride wanted, a price list for cakes with choices in six different flavors and fillings and the left-overs in a small cake box.
The next bakery served yellow cake and frosting without any fillings to sample. They did, however, present a lower price list. I nibbled on the cake and chatted as the bride-elect talked with the saleswoman about designs and deposits. We left with another left-over sampling of cake just as another couple was served an identical sample. My son and I crawled in the back seat with the cakes. My daughter sat in the front of the car chatting with the prospective Hershberger.
Son and I looked at each other. We looked at that box. He peeked
inside at the delicious strawberry filled cake with real slices of strawberries sliding out. I scrounged around in my back pack and found a couple cellophane sealed bags of plastic silverware from a fast food place I had saved for emergencies.
While the two young women chatted in the front seat, mother and son sampled small bites of cake in the back seat. Was the cake with raspberry filling better than with strawberry? Was the white cake a bit drier than the yellow cake? We tasted a second and a third time just to be sure.
We nibbled and tasted, unnoticed by the two in the front who were taking us to check out wedding invitations. As we entered the parking lot of the strip mall, my son groaned, “I don’t feel so good.”
Neither did I, but not as bad as he sounded.
“We have overdosed on cake,” I said. “Too much sweet without anything to offset it.”
His fiancee and my daughter, not having eaten a thing, stared at us without comprehension and assured us, “We’ll get something to eat after we go to these shops.”
“No, he needs something right now,” I insisted. Only a person who has O-D’ed on sugar knows how bad it feels when a sugar overload hits.
They shrugged and went in a shop. I headed for a sandwich shop with my son trailing along. I grabbed a small sub sandwich. We split it, doctored our halves with mustard, relish and mayo, took one bite and immediately knew why man can not live by sweets alone. We washed it down with soda and water and I offered to provide a few party trays to their planned cake and punch reception.
It was the least I could do after helping eat all the bride’s samples of wedding cake.