Happy birthday butternutsquash...

[Pumpkinstew]

I'd like to share a little story with you that happened earlier today and involves those cream cakes I mentioned earlier.

It's basically the done thing where I work that the birthday person gets the cakes in. Yeah, seems arse about face to me too, but it is how it is.
So I phoned up the bakery in the morning and had an order of 30 cream cakes put by. (They didn't even flinch at such an outrageous demand, bless 'em.)

So at lunchtime I made the 10 minute walk into town and got into the bakery. The lady there pulled three huge boxes of cakes up from behind the counter and said knowingly 'I suppose you'd like a bag'.
Now these boxes were HUGE. And there were THREE of them. I stress this because the plastic bag she pulled out was NOT huge. And there was ONE of it. After about 5 minutes of what is best described as faffing and jiggery-pokery (jaffery-fokery maybe) the boxes somehow got worked into the tardis bag. As I was paying the lady kindly informed me that cakes were 4 for the price of three so I had 7 free ones and 23 to pay for. Luckily I have some pretty sharp mental arithmetic after all my years studying nerd stuff so I asked 'If I get one more will I get another extra one'. 'Ummmmmmmm, yes.' said the lady quite uncertainly.
I now understood her reticence. This meant removing a box from the bag, The top one was already too full to accept anymore pastry. The second box could accomodate one more, just, with some gentle nudging. So the third one came out again. Loads of room in there. The bag sadly was now in no fit state to be carrying 32 cakes (24 full priced and 8 free). So another was produced and another bout of jaffery-fokery followed.
Then I spied some turkey salad sandwiches with stuffing and cranberry. I hadn't eaten yet so my stomach had had one added to the order without double checking with brain first.
I was scared the contents of the bag were approaching some kind of baked goods critical mass at this point. The last thing I wanted was for them to collapse into a localised superdense state called a 'Greggs Singularity' (colloquially known as a cream hole) so I decided to carry it in my spare hand.
I paid up and left.

About 30m back down the high street I spotted trouble. I don't know if Towcesters Weightwatchers club have a lunchtime meeting (is this an oxymoron) but it seemed as though the meeting had just finished. 5 of the wobbliest individuals I've ever seen were headed in my direction up the High St. For people who don't know Towcester, the High St is narrow. You have about 2feet of pavement and then you're into the A5 and probably under the wheels of an HGV. So I couldn't go around them. If the worst happened and they spotted the bag of cakes (24 paid for, 8 free) and turned on me I thought I could probably out run them but suspected the cakes might not be in a fit state to pass around to my esteemed colleagues later. It's birthday cake not birthday smush. I also surreptitously put my turkey sandwich into my pocket, out of sight.
I was stuck. I was short on time and so couldn't back track and take a longer route back to the office. Running would smush the cakes. Perhaps I could try and reason with them by just passing around 5 of the free ones (leaving me with 24 paid for and 3 free ones). Probably this would just send them into some kind of 'calorie lust' and I'd be back where I started but minus five free cakes.
The five were still panting and wheezing their way towards me in an unstopppable manner. It was a sunny day. If a family of walrus got lost and were making their way up a beach in the Algarve ...but damnit there was no time for whimsical, comedic analogies.I needed a plan.
Then I returned my hand to my pocket and rediscovered my stashed turkey salad sandwich with stuffing and cranberry. A plan began to form. If I could mask the bag of 32 cakes using my body I could use the sandwich to distract the walruses with a classic piece of misdirection. Sacrificing my sandwich I could slip away while they fell on it, probably causing something of a ruckuss and attracting a crowd of bystanders into which I could melt like a cake ninja in feudal Japan.

I clasped the sandwich as the distance closed and removed most of the paper bag with my teeth to allow as much aroma as possible to escape. I swung the bag into line behind me. I gripped the sandwhich a little too tightly with the anxiety and some cranberry sauce escaped and began to run over my hand. Three steps from the walrus. One or two began to eye me. I watched closely for the dilated pupils or flared nostrils which might signal a charge. The lead one nodded curtly. 'Scuse me' he muttered as I began to jostle my way through along the narrow pavement. Dull creamy thumps were echoing from the boxes in the bag behind me. I frantically waved the sandwich above my head to distract them... and then I was through... and gathering speed away from the herd. I risked a quick glance in the bag. All seemed to be fine. I'd left the bakery with 32 cakes and I still had 32 cakes (admittedly 8 of them were free and therefore more expendable but it still felt good to have got them all though.)
As I returned to the office I raised the bag up high and was about to shout out 'Birthday here. Cakes for everyone!' when I noticed the odd expressions I was getting.
'Have you got cranberry in your hair Stew?'