No Touchie!

Many bakeries have fake cakes used as displays to show off various designs or styles of cakes they do. Well, at our place we have two. One of a Barbie doll with a full length skirt made of cake and then a two layered carved Dora and Diego cake. We use to have a Spongebob one as well, but a mishap with an order and us not being able to find the kit in time resulted in us harvesting the display for its toys. Which is a shame as it was one of the nicer displays.

In any case, these are made of styrofoam bases (called Cake Dummies) and iced as though it were a real cake, but with royal icing, which hardens and is able to withstand the test of time (and mold) far more effectively than the standard buttercream.

They, however, are very breakable and costly to replace. Some are more expensive then the actual cake!

We used to display them on the counter, but customers would pick them up, drop them, and allow their children to handle them only to have the kid rip off a toy. I've hot glued these things back together so many times now the darn thing is more glue than styrofoam.

Our solution was to put them on a high shelf above the cake book where we assumed it was obvious the displays were not meant to be handled. But NOOOOOOOOO. People STILL pulled them down.

So I made a sign. It reads (in bright red ink): "Please do not touch or remove displays. Very fragile! Thank you."

Its been up for about a month and we haven't had any issues. Until tonight. As I closed the bakery and was about to go home, I saw a Mother lift her child ONTO the table top so she could reach the displays to play with. Inside I was fuming.

THERE IS A SIGN NOT BUT A FEW INCHES AWAY FROM YOUR FACE SAYING NOT TO TOUCH THE DISPLAYS! DO YOU LACK THE CAPABILITY TO READ WOMAN!?

Sick of people breaking my displays, I put on my no nonsense face and approached the woman and said:

"Ma'am, we request that customers refrain from removing or touching the displays, they are very fragile and expensive to replace. Also, we do not permit anyone to climb onto the tables for liability reasons, please remove your daughter from the table or I will have to ask you to leave."

She looked miffed, but I just stood there. She finally left down the Dairy aisle after her Husband. I informed the front desk before leaving about the incident in case the lady complained about me being rude to her.