Before I begin, a fair warning to the reader—this story is slightly gross, so if you tend to be squeamish, please read with caution!

The date was October 2nd—my mom’s birthday—and it was looking to be a great one. I was around 11 or so at the time. My family was on our way to church, as we usually were on Sundays such as this, and the atmosphere seemed bright and cheerful. Everything was projected to be perfect. 

To make matters even better, a family friend approached us, offering to have us over. To our surprise, she and her family had prepared a small celebration for my mom, and they had made cupcakes! My sister and I were excited, as we would both be enjoying some delectable treats and spending great time with friends.  

At noon, we headed over. Our family arrived at our friends’ home, and they cheerily welcomed us into the dining room. 

The table was adorned with decorations themed around Wonder Woman, my mom’s favorite superhero. In the center of the table was a small tower with similarly decorated cupcakes, which had bright blue frosting and a fondant “W” in the shape of Wonder Woman’s insignia. This family friend loved to decorate desserts, and they always turned out to be amazing. This case was no different. My sister, myself, and the other kids from our church all looked on in, well, wonder. They looked absolutely delicious! We couldn’t wait to have some. 

All of the kids cleared out to play before we would all sing Happy Birthday. I followed, and we had fun talking and playing with each other in the kids’ rooms. Soon enough, though, we were called back into the dining room.

The lights were turned out as a candle was lit atop a cupcake, which was placed in front of my mom. We sang, and she blew it out while we all cheered. Everyone else was handed one of the azure cupcakes.

I excitedly unwrapped mine and took a bite. It tasted great! So much so, in fact, that I quickly had almost devoured it. I smiled as I finished it off with a final bite. Afterwards, I trailed behind my pals into the kitchen, but after a few minutes, I suddenly started to feel very strange. The feeling seemed quite unfamiliar to me at the time, but I could tell something was wrong. Not wanting to interrupt my family, however, I placed the thought in the back of my mind and went back to running around with the other kids. 

While I was sitting on the main room’s floor, contentedly hanging out with everyone, the feeling popped up once again. There was a weird feeling in my stomach, and my jaw also felt quite strange. By now, you can probably guess why. But this time, I knew I needed to let my parents know that something was up.

I made my way to the adults and tapped my mom’s shoulder. Everyone else in the room was having a great time, and didn’t much notice my entrance. Before I got a chance to tell her about anything, my mom noticed some blue frosting on my cheek. “Let me get that with a napkin real quick,” she told me. 

I let her wipe my face, but began to feel markedly worse. I stopped her for a second, saying only, “I don’t feel so good,” before I finally threw up, and unfortunately…it was bright blue. Everyone else in the room turned to look at me in surprise, and I stood in shock in the center of the room. All eyes were on me, and I quickly felt my cheeks go warm. Seconds later, I realized what had happened. Not only had I been sick, but I had been standing directly in front of my mom, and she was…well, hit. I had thrown up on my mom on her birthday!

As if everything couldn’t get any worse, this family’s dining room had a rug under the table, and I realized I had hit that as well! I felt further in shock, most likely having stained their carpet for good. I stood there, frozen, as I processed everything that was happening.

Our friend rushed to clean my mom and I up, sympathetic to my feelings of nausea, as her husband started to clean up the carpet, which now had an accent of blue. 

My face cooled as the initial shock died down. No one seemed to be upset at me, mostly because they were more concerned that I was sick, but I felt so guilty that I hadn’t gotten a chance to run to a toilet or trash can. We all guessed that I had eaten my cake way too quickly, and that it had caused me to feel ill.

Soon everything was mostly cleaned up, and my dad had gotten my mom and I new clothes. I was still feeling very embarrassed, especially because I was in front of everyone! The carpet had been cleaned, but there was a spot that had a slight azure tint where it was supposed to be beige. Our family friends made sure to let me know that everything was okay, so I felt a little more reassured. However, they did joke about the carpet a lot, causing me to go a little sheepish. In fact, for a couple years, the carpet was the subject of many jokes to come between our families!

Afterwards, my mom was relieved that I was feeling better, but she wished I had told her I wasn’t feeling well before she got near my face!