Eat Cake for Breakfast

I’m not an upscale shopper. I don’t go out of my way to buy designer things. If I happen to run into a cute Hilfiger shirt on sale, I’ll buy it. I like to buy my son Nautica bedspreads, but that’s about the extent of my designer purchases.

Last year, I was at Dillard’s, a nice department store in Akron, Ohio. Two weeks before, I’d had a surgery to remove an angiosarcoma on my right breast. What I was doing out shopping, I don’t know. I should have been home in bed recuperating. Still on pain pills, I’d found a ride to the store. I was in the kitchen department. Dillard’s had great kitchen items—black and white, polka dot bowls and pretty floral table cloths, picnic sets complete with eight-piece plastic dishes, Fiestaware.

But what I had my eye on were the kitchen towel and oven mitt sets — particularly the Kate Spade towels and pot holders. The one I liked was the set that said, “Eat Cake for Breakfast.”

I loved to eat cake for breakfast. My husband Steve got after me for doing this, but I liked nothing better than to have a huge piece of chocolate cake and nice cold milk for breakfast.

These oven mitts and towels were me. I had to have them. But $35 for pot holders and dish towels? I usually picked up my kitchen goods at Big Lots for a buck a piece. Why should I spend $35 on these kitchen items?

Well, they were Kate Spade. They were designer mitts and towels. Everyone would know that they were the finest of the finest, wouldn’t they?

Not being able to justify the purchase, I left, my ride driving me home.

About a week later, I had a scan to see if the cancer had affected the tissue below my skin. Had the cancer spread? I waited impatiently for the results. Was I out of the woods?

Three days later, good news came back. No internal cancer. I thought about how I should celebrate.

I went to Dillard’s and bought the “Eat Cake for Breakfast” items.

Hallelujah, I don’t have cancer. And I eat cake for breakfast.