My good friend Helen and I both have 16-year-old daughters. Last year, my daughter made a small, beautifully decorated cake for Helen’s daughter’s birthday. Related Articles This year, my daughter again decided to give Helen’s daughter a cake.
I didn’t know this. Three weeks before the sweet-16 party, my daughter got a call from Helen’s sister who used to be a baker. She started talking about my daughter making the cake for the entire party of 60.
A week later, the baker sent me a large list of ingredients, cake supplies and descriptions of eight cakes that she expected my daughter to make. I called Helen and told her this is nuts. Helen responded that she does indeed expect my daughter to do all of that because my daughter was the one who said she was gifting “the cake” for the party.
My daughter had planned to make another small cake, which is what she told Helen’s daughter. Helen’s daughter told Helen my daughter was making the big cake. When Helen and her sister called my daughter, she just rolled with it.
I am upset about getting pulled into what looks like to me confusion, bad planning, communication and coordination. I am of two minds — one says that we’ll gift the cake for the party, deal with the unexpected expense and call it a day. And the other says, call Helen and tell her she will have to sort out the cake for the rest of the party.
What do you think would be an appropriate or reasonable thing to do at this point? : A little half-baked, rig.