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I'm so angry right now I could smash my face into my desk until the front of my nose meets the back of my skull. I could set light to my leg.
Cake. One big fat massive cake. Sitting there in front of me in its tub.
Why do people bring endless supplies of cake into the office? When did this become acceptable?
Today's chocolate and nut death star was brought in before my arrival and placed on what was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s the official cake plinth; a shrine to soppiness and obesity. When I saw this monstrous, calorific lump, I froze...and I snapped. Something has to be said.
Am I the only one trying to stay slim and healthy?
There was once a time when the odd birthday cake would be brought in...or the occasional souvenir sweet selection. Lately, my office has been turned into a patisserie.
The latest glut began three weeks ago, when a well-meaning idiot brought in some baked cookies.
I watched my colleagues with a curled lip and narrowed eyes. Look at them, the feasting gluttons, hovering around the treats like plump carrion.
The following week we had a landslide of Haribo sweets and Turkish chocolates. I did not eat a sweet. Not a single one.
Last week began with two packs of biscuits which then became three packs of biscuits, a flan and an assortment of chocolate brownies. Am I exaggerating?
Then there was this morning's arrival. The sponge. It's there still, gurning at me.
Ah but that’s not all. You won’t believe it! Someone else has been baking over the weekend! Oh my golly goodness! Hit me round the head with a hockey stick wrapped in Cath Kidston ribbons! No seriously, hit me with it until I die. Look what's arrived. A monstrous home baked tarte tatin, cradled so proudly by its mother I half expected her to lop out a boob and breastfeed the bloody thing.
Well in fact, the tarte and I are not meant to be. But the sponge longs for me. The whore. It can sense my fear. It's been tormenting me all day. Earlier, it sent crumb ambassadors to my desk and, through some secret network known only to baked goods, it managed to kiss my elbow with buttercream. Oh the agony as I wiped it off with a kitchen towel...
I'm glaring at the sponge now, chewing my raw carrot. I will kill it. Could I knock it to the floor? Perhaps I could tip it in the bin? Murder.
Listen to this. If the Government wishes to curb the obesity epidemic, it should forget chip shops and ready meals and kebabs and focus instead on kind, maternal women in offices who equate sweet foods with happiness.
For me, sweet foods are NOT happiness, they are poisonous, tormenting globules of artery-clogging, waistband-stretching fat bombs. In each sugary mouthful there are hundreds of plump photographs on Facebook and hours of unhappy reflections in the mirror.
I work hard and put my body through a lot of pain to stay slim and toned and I live a lifetime of abstention and self-control. I don’t need this ridiculous distraction in my place of work. "Oh live a little!" they say, just before sipping their calorie-packed fruit drinks and chomping their cereal bars. They're heading for heart attacks and diabetes while I'm cast as a stick in the mud pie.
Listen up you bunch of deluded knicker-stretchers. You pick up diets like you pick up dairy milks and you expect me - someone who's actually taking his food seriously - to put up with your insensitive, self-deluded face stuffing regime?
Would you plonk bottles of gin in front of an alcoholic? No. So leave off will you? Eat biscuits for breakfast and cake for lunch. Eat custard and Toblerones for pudding. I don't care. Build a house out of marble cake and eat the damned thing. Just don't bring it into work!
The cake. It's staring at me still. A molten dribble of cream slips down its side and tickles its firm base. Don't look back. You'll only encourage it.
You know...half of last week's brownies went into the kitchen bin wrapped in tissue. Nobody noticed...wait there.
…I did it. I confess. The sponge is dead. Just a few pathetic crumbs sprinkled on the crime scene, orbiting an empty circular footprint. The crumpled corpse of the cake is now folded beneath an assortment of used tea bags and tissues. Long live my waistline. But...
“Oh!” exclaims the baker with a maternal coo. “Everyone loved my cake! I’ll have to bake another one for tomorrow!”.
We fight on.
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