“I couldn’t believe my eyes! What kind of mother sends out a birthday invite that tells you to bring party food?” she asked exasperatedly of her husband.
Their son had been invited to a birthday party requesting he bring a dozen homemade cupcakes with optional gift.

Meryl did not bake.
Meryl did not cook.
Her family was numbed on take-away meals and packaged cakes and deserts so to be asked to actually cook was a knife sharp kitchen frisk.
But Meryl would not let their son be the odd child.

Meryl’s son was in awe of the sight of his mother in the kitchen opening the oven’s mouth engaged in a cooking conversation.
The icing for the cupcakes was white but Meryl knew it would taste pink delicious.
She gave into temptation and stuck her finger in the icing sugar waltz.
A curious satisfaction rolled over her as she counted out twelve cupcakes.

The family food menu began to change from this time on.
Meryl found the sensorial delights and gourmet rewards of freshly cooked food and cooked up big and often.
Her son grew up too largish and grumpily rolled away from her hearth.
Not long after this her husband also left, dying from a ‘not one more morsel!’ heart attack.

Morbidly obese Meryl’s doctor told her.
Her prescribed ‘Food Therapy’ group was a mix of curiously food challenged people from the gluttonous to the fearful.
Meryl greatly admired the new member’s slim figure who was speaking for her first time.
“I never cook not even for birthdays … I’ve always got some stupid person to do that…”

Meryl couldn’t believe her eyes!
It was her!
The mother who’d sent that birthday invite to bring homemade cupcakes.
Meryl‘s hulk became saturated in anger, a plentiful pour of pure resentment.
It was going be death by arsenic cupcake for her skinny nemesis!

Meryl rumbled towards her car muttering cupcake recipes.
A fast car bounced Meryl like a butterball.
The driver felt a little lighter squashing the weight of his mother out of his unhappy life.