The Great Cake Deception

It was time for the annual cake sale at a Presbyterian church. Mrs. Billings always made 

the most beautiful cakes and she was expected to make another one this year. However, 

Ms. Billings was a very busy woman with the time she spent with her family and the time 

she gave to her community. She put off making the cake this year, thinking she could 

put it all together at the last minute.

When the cake came out of the oven, Mrs. Billings was horrified to see that the cake had 

fallen. She didn’t have the time or the ingredients to make another one and she panicked. 

Frantically, she devised an ingenious plan. She would find a way to "fix" the 

cake...then she would be the first one to the sale and buy her own cake back. 

Mrs. Billings looked around the room, trying to find something that she could use to 

"prop" the cake back up, and then she found it. A roll of toilet paper was the perfect 

size. So, she put it under the center of the cake and the cake looked perfect. She decorated 

it bright yellow and took it to the bake sale. Then she stuck around until the bake sale 

started. 

She was the first in line when the doors opened.   She smiled to herself about how clever 

she was. But then there was a terrifying horror crawling up from within her. She looked 

at every single table there was no yellow cake! Someone had snuck in before the sale and 

purchased it. The helpers couldn’t remember who had purchased it either because there 

was so much going on. 

She went home and felt absolutely horrible. That was it.   They would find the toilet 

paper in the cake, trace it back to her, and ban her from ever cooking ever again. 

Mrs. Billings didn’t have a whole lot of time to dwell on her problem. She was going to a 

reception that the Mayor’s wife was holding, and she was already a little late. 

When she got there, Mrs. Billings almost died right where she stood, because there, at the 

center of a brilliantly decorated table, was her bright, yellow cake. She debated all of her 

options: grab the cake and run, change her name and move to Tahiti, call in a bomb 

threat, or tell the hostess. It was a dead tie between calling in a bomb threat and telling 

the hostess, when she decided to muster up the courage to tell the Mayor’s wife of the 

horrors that awaited her inside the yellow cake. 

As Mrs. Billings got up to tell the hostess about the cake, she overheard someone 

complimenting the mayor’s wife. "That is simply the most beautiful cake I have ever 

seen!" To which the Mayor’s wife replied, "Thank you, I made it myself." Mrs. 

Billings then sat down and enjoyed her fruit salad. 

What Might Have Been

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) shared his family's story at a Teamster's organizing conference. His parents had been sharecroppers in South Carolina in the 1940s. They married at 18. His father had a second grade education; his mother a first grade education. His father worked from dawn to dusk on someone else’s farm, plowing behind a mule for 15 cents a day. His mother earned 10 cents a day digging potatoes.

At some point Cummings’ father realized: “We got to get ourselves up out of here.” They moved north as did millions of other African Americans. He got a job at a steel plant in Baltimore, made $1.10 an hour and only had to work 8 hours a day. He became a union man, had health insurance and vacation. Eventually, the couple had seven children, saved their money and bought a four-bedroom house.

Cummings said his dad used to tell the kids, “If you miss even one day of school it will be because you died the night before.” Cummings’ father had been deprived of an education, but he was determined to make sure his children had it better. He attended church every Sunday, sang in the choir, and walked the picket line when the union went out on strike.

When Elijah Cummings was sworn into office as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, his father watched from the gallery and cried. The son had never seen the father cry before. Elijah asked why now. His father replied, “Of course I’m proud of you, but now I see what I could have been.”

[Jim Winkler, What Might Have Been in Words from Winkler, General Board of Church and Society website, April 17, 2009.]