As regular readers of this blog know, my daughter Casey is a Canadian-TV-reality-show-winning baker who is now baking beautiful birthday cakes on commission for people in our area.
Regular readers also could probably predict that, because I have a daughter with such credentials, I would have unpresidential pastry thoughts upon hearing the news that the
Trump campaign was asking people to send birthday wishes to the president.
“President Trump’s birthday is coming up and there’s no better way to wish him a ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ than by sending him a personal video message,” read the tweet from “Team Trump.” If you clicked the link, you were taken to a page where you could submit your video. “We want to make this year President Trump’s BEST BIRTHDAY EVER,” it said. “Our goal is to have Patriots, like you, send us videos with your Birthday messages for President Trump. Submit your video TODAY. We will be showing President Trump the first 500 responses TONIGHT.”
This is pathetic on so many levels, I almost don’t know where to start. But I’ll begin here: Isn’t it sad that the President of the United States has to have his team beg people to send him birthday wishes as if he is a friendless five-year-old boy?
From there I’ll go onto this question: in the midst of the pandemic, and millions of folks out of work, and nationwide protests against racial injustice, the President has time to watch 500 videos? And they didn’t even put a time limit on the videos! Plus, he’s going to watch them all in one night! That’s going to take a lot of fried chicken and Diet Cokes!
Third, Trump’s birthday isn’t until June 14th. So why will he be watching birthday videos “TONIGHT”? Shouldn’t Team Trump save them for his actual birthday?
Fourth, why doesn’t Trump want birthday wishes from any other NFL teams?
Finally, how dumb does “Team Trump” have to be to not anticipate the type of responses they would get?
Among the first 500 responses Trump will be watching may be a rather lengthy and profanity-laced video from the actor Rob Delaney, who even included condemnations of Ivanka and Mike Pence before telling Trump that “more and more people are growing to hate you every day, which is just fantastic, so you should fucking quit.”
Another actor, Michael Ian Black, recorded his video in a nice, outdoorsy setting. 
“You’re probably too busy to celebrate,” he said. “You’ve got television to watch, tweets to write, protesters to gas, intelligence reports to ignore, pandemic responses to fuck up.”
Well, I thought I would take a kinder, gentler approach. I’d have my Canadian-TV-reality-show-winning baker daughter create a cake for the President. I didn’t think she could actually send it to him, of course, since the Secret Service would have to tear it apart looking for explosives or maybe porn stars waiting to pop out. Also, someone, possibly Eric, would have to take a bite first. (They’d tell him it was “ceremonial.”)
But I figured she could take a video of her cake and send that, maybe with some lit candles on it that the President could pretend to blow out after making a wish. (“Don’t tell us what you wished for, Mr. President.” “Why? Because it won’t come true?” “No, because nobody wants to know what the hell you’d wish for.”)
Getting back to the cake, I even had a few decorating ideas:
A blue-clad knee kneeling on the “Happy birthday, Donald.”- A picture of Joe Biden saying “Eat me.”
- Lots of pretty little edible coronavirus germs.
- One finger sticking out.
I sent Casey an email (even though she was just downstairs) with a link to Team Trump’s tweet and the subject line “I think you should make him a cake.” She didn’t respond, though. Maybe she was taking a nap. Or maybe she knew it was too late to be one of the first 500 responses.
Or maybe she just thinks I’m an idiot.
Yeah, probably that one.
See you soon.
The Upsizers 