Not Your Mother's Cupcake War *or* Cupcakes? Yo Momma.

**This post is nothing more than a humorous story about the far-reaching side effects of PSM.

My fantabulous friend, Pamela, lives in a North Carolina beach town and has four children. The oldest left for college this year and the youngest just started preschool. She and her husband are separated, so she qualifies for a double-dose of PSM prevention. If only there were such a thing.

Her oldest, Tayler, attends school in town about 15 minutes away, which one would think would be less of a separation than had she gone far away. But, it seems to be worse than a cleaner break. As Pamela puts it, "Tayler is perfectly capable of coming home for dinner or helping me with an emergency errand, but, of course, she doesn't. She's too busy having fun! Ingrate."

Her youngest, Lara, is as she should be, very excited and proud of herself about being on her own a few hours a day for the first time. And, of course, the more she learns about life, the less Mom knows about anything.

All this separation anxiety must find an outlet. Enter beach town preschool. Little princesses and princes dressed to the nines every day for their four or five hours playing with dirt and clay and paint. Why? Because Mommy has time. And money. And that sort of inclination. Think Real Housewives of Wilmington and their lil' angels.

Pamela was born and raised on the mean and unpaved streets of South Georgia. She doesn't DO things like ruffles and hair-bows. And her daughters don't either. In fact, when Lara's 5th birthday arrived last week, she asked for a cake with cockroaches on it. For her special gift, she wanted to go to the Serpentarium (I'm no hair-bow type, but even I didn't know that this is a snake museum) and she wanted a tiger and a rhinocerous for her zoo-bed where she reenacts carnivorous jungle stories.

The day before Lara's big day, Pamela talked to Miss Tiffany about bringing cupcakes in for the class to celebrate. Another little girl's mother overheard.

"It's Lara's birthday tomorrow? It's Eva's birthday, too!"

OUTSIDE: "Oh, really? Well isn't that nice." INSIDE: "Unfreekingbelievable."

Now, a little about Eva. She's the wrong crowd. She's princesses and hair-bows, but she's also a little bitch. Her family recently moved to town from somewhere in New Jersey. You can imagine. Miss Tiffany has a little pool of rubber ducks with each child's name. If a child misbehaves, his or her duck gets flipped. Yes, ass up, so the poor duck, if not plastic, would struggle, then drown. If a child misbehaves again, his or her duck gets removed completely from the pool, if not plastic, to dry up and shrivel to a slow, painful, horrific death. (Miss Tiffany has issues, obviously.) Eva gets her duck flipped every day. And more often than not, it's for being mean to Lara!! Eva is just bad beach town preschool news. And Pamela wanted no part of her daughter sharing her birthday glory with such. 

"I was thinking of bringing cupcakes for the class, too."

"Oh, really? Well, I'm bringing Lara's cupcakes anyway."

"Why don't we each bring a dozen? Then we could combine their birthdays and only have to bring half the amount of cupcakes."

OUTSIDE: "Oh, really? Well, that'd be just fine." INSIDE: "Oh, really? I got somethin' for you, bitch. You can't handle MY birthday cupcakes! Nobody wants you or your daughter or your freekin' cupcakes around here."

Fast forward to the morning of the party: Pamela brought her homemade cupcakes with homemade fudge chocolate frosting with little rubber cockroaches on top that the kids could play with. Did she stop there? Of course not. She brought juice boxes and those little individual-sized paper cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with the little flat wooden spoons that kids of all ages LOVE. She carried it all into the classroom in a trademarked Tupperware cupcake and ice cream cup carrier. Eva's mother's cupcakes?? In a Harris Teeter box. They were pastel pink and yellow and rainbow blue dye numbers 5, 8, and 14. I don't need to tell you this, but they had little princesses on top.

All the boys and most of the girls ate Lara's cupcakes and told her how good they were. And, of course, even though it was her birthday, Eva got her duck removed from the pool and a preschool eviction notice later that day for trying to stab a kid with one of her mother's plastic princess toothpicks. Amateur. PSM TKO, Pamela, PSM TKO.