this is how it started...

So after Tom finally proposed to Courtney, this began. At work one morning:

Tom: Camille, will you make my wedding cake?

Me: No.

Tom: Why not?

Me: Because I don't know how to make wedding cakes.

Tom: But you made that wedding cake for your friend.

Me: Yeah, but it was small and my Mom was there. She knows how to make wedding cakes.

Tom: You made it once, you can do it again.

Me: No.

Then next day we were on shift:

Tom: So let me tell you about that wedding cake...

Me: No.

Tom: ...that you're making me.

Me: No.

Tom: The wedding is in October.

Me: No. I don't know how to make wedding cakes!

Tom: You're going to do great.

Me: No.

This continues:

Tom: So about that wedding cake.

Me: No.

Tom: Courtney has a picture of it for you.

Me: No.

Tom: It's just for like 200-250 people.

Me: No!

This continued for a long time. Finally one day I remembered how Tom had re-done our deck for just the price of materials. Crap. I probably owed him.

So I sucked it up and agreed to do the cake with the understanding that 1) I was not a professional so if it turned out badly it was not my fault; I had forewarned them. And 2) I had never attempted a cake of this size so if it turned out badly it was not my fault; I had forewarned them.

And that's how it began.

Also I asked Tom if Courtney had a KitchenAid type mixer I could borrow. Ashley has a Bosch, which is good but when you use powder sugar in it, the sugar puffs up into the gears and makes a horrible worse-than-nails-against-a-chalkboard noise. It's terrible. Tom said sure. But when he never got it to me, I just assumed that he had forgotten and didn't bug him about it.

A week before the wedding I came back to the firehouse after a call and Tom was there (he's not on my shift anymore so it was odd that he had stopped by). He came into the radio room and said that Courtney and he had gotten me a thank you present, it was in the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and this was sitting on the countertop (in its box of course):

A mixer. A real grow up mixer. Like the kind that married people get as wedding presents. Shoot, now I don't need to get married. I was only going to do it for the presents like this. I was totally surprised. I don't think Tom understood how cool this was. But he did good.