Putting out Fires

I admit it.  I want to be the ‘cool wife’.  At the fire stations its a touchy situation with women visitors.  The guys definitely see their fair share of ‘hose bunnies’ and I would hate to be associated with that in any way. 

I’ve got a lot going for me in the cool category.  I’ve got a job that guys think is awesome, I like camping, I fund my husband’s man hobbies without complaint (well, without MUCH complaint), I fuel conversations about which famous chicks are hot or not, but for me its not enough.  All of those things are the same reasons I’m ‘one of the guys’ at work.  I don’t want to be that to the firefighters. 

So I bake.  I love to bake.  But even more so I love to bake and have people gush over how good it is, and I’m lucky to have built-in guinea pigs at Ryan’s work.  My Better Than Sex Chocolate Cake made its first appearance at Station 57, and my Holy Cow cake made a tour of the stations before it was perfect.

Yesterday, to celebrate Ryan’s first day back since I got back from England, I tried my hand at a new recipe.  The tricky part was the homemade frosting.  It turned out SO GOOD, but in my haste to get it down to the boys I skipped the part about letting it set in the fridge, figuring that the A/C in the car was good enough.  I carefully arranged the cake so that it sat flat on the front seat next to me, then I pulled out of the garage… and the afternoon Arizona sun hit the cake full-on.  By the end of the street the chocolate started to drip.  When I came to a stop at the first intersection the top layer went sliding right off the bottom layer.  When the light turned green I managed to get it to slide all the way backwards off the bottom layer in the other direction.  For 15 miles I played a game of trying to drive just right so that the cake’s layers would match up.  The closer I got to the station, the more I knew the cake was a goner.  All the sliding had stressed the top layer to the point of cracking.  So I stopped and bought cookies.

After visiting with the guys for a few minutes and watching them scarf the cookies, Ryan walked me to my car where I showed him the chocolate disaster in the front seat.  I was about 5 minutes down the road when I got a call on my cell from an unknown number.  It was the station.  “Are you going to bring that cake back down here for us to eat or what?”  He’d told them about the melted cake and now I felt pressured to take it down there.  The guys deemed it ‘artistic’ and graciously thanked me for it.  I drove home feeling mortified that I’d actually shown that monstrosity to people.  At 10pm I got a call from Ryan.  The 6 of those guys finished off every last bit of the cake and wanted to know when I was making another.  (firefighters’ll eat anything)