These things just don’t happen to normal people

In honor of the 2011 Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
that ended today.

One of the gifts that women give each other at the birth of a baby is called a diaper cake.  It’s a bunch of diapers rolled up and stacked to resemble a multi-tiered wedding cake and then decorated with ribbons and baby toys.  Because nothing says “Congratulations” like something that looks edible but will actually contain poop in the not-so-distant future.

A few weeks after I returned from maternity leave last year a diaper cake appeared in my office one day as a gift.  Unlike the cakes I’ve seen covered with rattles and pacis, this one was topped off with a … (Wait for it)…

With a Cross and Flame. The symbol of the United Methodist Church.  Now a non-edible dessert made of poop holders was sitting right there in my office as a shining beacon of my denomination and chosen calling.  The thing that made this gift even more astounding was that it was anonymous. No one claimed responsibility for the creation of something that summed up my new life of motherhood/pastorhood/daily obsession with someone else’s poop. (How many times can you use the word poop in one post before they kick you off the internet?)

Not to be deterred, I called our Director of Facilities and had him pull up the security footage of the front desk during the hours the “cake” was delivered.  Several staff members gathered in his office in front of our expensive security equipment (I’m sure we purchased it for just such an occasion) and we began trying to figure out who the culprit might have been. It was a lot like CSI.

Law and Order UMC

When we got to the exact frame, the young couple who carried the “cake” in was a bit blurry, and as much as I squinted at the screen I couldn’t identify them.  No one else recognized them either.  I thought about collecting DNA and fingerprints and sending them off to the crime lab, but wasn’t sure they would consider this as high a priority as I did.