Car cake. It’s a thing. A thing I invented so I don’t have to pay for expensive therapy in order to stop my mind racing like a fly in a jam pot. 

I don’t always do a car cake but I know exactly when I need to. I get a gut feeling, and no, it’s not called greed. Depending on what kind of therapy I need will depend on which cake I choose. Often they tend to be a cream slice or a zingy lemon tart. I have got to be honest and say that I prefer a zingy lemon tart as it cuts through all the detritus. I do my shopping and I collect my cake from the patisserie section. Once I have paid and loaded the shopping into the truck, I sit down with my cake in the front of the car and breathe. The anticipation before opening the box is just as exciting as the first bite.

You Can Have Your Cake And Eat It

 At this point everything is perfect: the cake is here, the cake is whole, the pleasure is mine for the taking whenever I’m ready. I almost don’t want to open it so it never has to end. Sometimes I put the radio on quietly and sometimes I don’t. I never put my seat belt on because I don’t want to feel constricted and I’m not going anywhere. I sit right there in the concrete car park and slowly eat my cake.  To the great outside I must look like a serial diet cheater or sugar fiend and people may wonder why I don’t drive home and eat my cake in the comfort of my own place. I’ll tell you why:

Firstly, I hate shopping so as well as therapy its like a reward for the ordeal.

The reward is instant and I don’t have to wait. I’m not a fan of waiting either.

Who has therapy at home?

If I take it home I’ll probably be more stressed because on the drive home someone is likely to have caused rage on my road. 

I’ll have to put the shopping away first. I don’t want to have to do that.

If I go home, the wolfits will want to know why I have a treat and they don’t and I must surely want to share it. 

“You must need a big house to have dogs like that,” they say.

No. I could live in an Airstream if I wanted because my wolfits are always exactly where I am. When I sit at my tiny, two-seater breakfast table this is where they lie.

Squished at the bottom of my feet.

If I made my car cake a breakfast table cake they would lie there, low-level whining and spoil the moment. I would feel guilty and the cake therapy would be ruined.

Paved Paradise

You might wonder why I don’t drive to somewhere more beautiful to eat my car cake and I refer you to all the points above.  

I sit there revelling in the each bite, taking my time to enjoy each morsel. I stare into the middle distance and the passers by are like oil paintings of people; a vague resemblance, a blur.  The sound of cars slowly driving past to look for parking spaces is a white noise that helps the sugar trance. 

I try not to think of things that are pissing me off because it spoils the palate. Instead I dream of possibilities, things I can change, lives I could have lived. I think of colours and pretty things and living by the sea. I imagine ways I can make the future as exciting as the past or how I can embrace change and grow mentally. How can I become a better person? I sometimes wonder how I can fit in and then remember why I don’t want to. I wonder what it would be like to win the Omaze house or to live with barely anything and no chains. I question why I’m not famous after everything I’ve tried and know I would detest it if I was. I wonder what I might try next and how exciting it is going to be. 

Then the cake is finished and I want to run back into the shop and buy another three because it tasted so good. But that’s not how therapy works.  Time is up. Deep breath in – Deep breath out. 

Well, wasn’t that all very Lemony Snickety, I think. I start my car and drive back home.