Fast Fingers Freddy

Yesterday was an eventful day for me. My parents met Lauren's grandparents and a host of other people somehow related to the Goldstein-Greenberg clan at a very nice dinner hosted by the aforementioned grandparents. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of eating and a healthy amount of drinking as well...all good things. Unfortunately the defining moment of the evening came at the expense of two cupcakes.

We know where we made our critical error. Lauren and I bought a fine selection of eight gourmet cupcakes to serve as part of dessert, and they were displayed on a crystal cupcake platter as you might find at a nice family dinner. However, we failed to remove this display from the dinner table prior to sitting down for the meal itself. Typically you don't put dessert on the table until the dinner part of the meal is finished, but then again, you don't expect that anyone besides a undisciplined child would actually make a move for a cupcake until dinner was over and everyone else was ready to eat dessert. Let me set the scene here:

The majority of the group sat the large dining table in the kitchen of Lauren's grandparents house, a table that seats 10-12 depending on the seating chart. Last night it was 10. As it was, the dinner was buffet style and everyone grabbed their plates of food prior to picking a seat at the table. All was well and good until about 15 minutes into the meal when Lauren tapped me on the arm. Next to her sat Freddy, a long-winded, grandstanding man with a penchant for the dramatic. Lauren and I had endured a painful session with Freddy before dinner, as he rambled his way through some truly uninspiring and monotonous stories about a football game, a wedding and something about a company in LA that I have yet to determine what in the sam hell he was actually talking about. I digress...after the arm tap, I looked over at Freddy and didn't immediately notice what had caused Lauren to direct my attention his way. She finally alerted me that a cupcake was indeed missing from the tray (which sat about eight inches in front of Freddy), and there sat Fred, furiously devouring a cupcake as if his life depended on it. Further, it was the one cupcake the Lauren had hoped would be available to her when it was time for dessert. No sale.

For a few minutes, we both confusedly tried to make sense of the situation. First off, it was the best cupcake on there and I felt bad that my lady wouldn't be able to enjoy even a taste of it. Second, the plan was to cut the cupcakes into sections so that everyone could try a bit of each if desired. Now we were down to 7. At this time, it was clear that our diversion from Freddy to discuss the hilarity/horror of his thievery was our second and perhaps most damaging mistake.

The second tap on the arm was doubly as appalling as the first. I peered over at Freddy a second time, and there sat the ingrate, halfway into cupcake #2. Yeah, that's right. Not satisfied with just one, he had helped himself to a second and as luck would have it, it was Lauren's hopeful second choice of cupcake after losing the battle for her first choice. Talk about ruining a girl's night. To top off this cupcake circus, it then became apparent that Freddy's wife had gone ahead and joined her husband in his tomfoolery by helping herself to a cupcake. She showed some sense of control by taking only half of a cupcake but SHIT MAN. Who the hell do these people think they are? You don't eat a quarter of the cupcake allotment DURING DINNER unless you're either a) a dog or b) insane. I guess I've solved that mystery.

What made this scenario even funnier was when Lauren actually cut up the cupcakes to serve to the guests, Freddy's wife came over a exclaimed "ooohh, look at the pretty cupcakes!" This kinda set me off. I wanted to ask her if they looked any different from a few minutes ago, when her and Freddy decided to pig out and consequently ruin our evening. She would later contend that the dessert portion of the meal was indeed a "cupcake orgy". I know her and Freddy were satisfied, but I can assure you that Lauren and I were not.

I later found out than Freddy had recently lost his job and ten days ago had removed all the alcohol from his house in order to support his newly christened sobriety. Perhaps the cupcakes had provided him with a little happiness but at what price? It's rumored that Freddy has just rid his house of all cupcakes and then promptly headed to a C.A. meeting downtown. Yes, that would be Cupcakes Anonymous.

Line of the night provided by Lauren's grandfather, Dick:

(referring to my mom) "Your mom is very attractive. Does she fool around?"