On the topic of cakes…
Childhood abuse is an interesting topic. I was eating at my mum's place today and she'd been baking all day. She'd baked four cakes, one madeira, one victoria sponge, two fruit cakes. The whole place smelt of hot cakes.
Come meal time cakes were everywhere. Alas, three of the cakes were not for our consumption, they were all 'going somewhere'. Coffee mornings, social events, fair stalls, other relatives, you name it. Cakes were rarely ever for 'our' consumption. Hence point one of the psychological abuse: the thousands of times my nostrils would be wafted with the scent of warm cake, for hours on end, only to have them snatched away and for there to be actually be no cake for us.
Tonight, however, cake was permitted. Of the two fruit cakes, one was allowed to be 'tried'. We were allowed to be the proverbial guinea pigs. The royal food tasters attaining the luxury of sampling the fine dish within the somewhat off-putting context of 'it might be bad'. Which was the case with tonight's cake. Sadly undercooked and so the 'real' cake, the cake destined for more important people, was placed back in the oven. Continuing the aroma into the post-meal phase of the night. So point two of the psychological abuse: we were never important enough to have cakes made just for us and for no reason other than cakes are nice.
But the real kicker was the fact that tonight's 'trial' cake was not even supposed to be eaten during dinner. We had to bully mother into allowing us to try the cake while it was still warm. She had initially stated "no, we can't start that one yet, we'll have some later, when it's cold enough to cut". To which I replied "are you serious?" and "I would much rather eat it hot if that's all the same to you". And, eventually, we all got a slice of warm undercooked fruit cake. Which was nice. I even had a second slice.
And now you see psychological abuse point three. Throughout my entire life I've barely ever eaten hot cakes. Of those cakes that have ever made it to our table for 'us' consumption, they have almost invariably all been 'out the fridge many hours later', for the sole reason that "they are easier to cut then".
Now… conceptualise this last fact for a moment. Imagine you are being brought up by someone with such a complete and chronic personal belief system that the concept of hot cakes is entirely alien to them. That the said person has baked cakes for their entire life, which now totals well over three score years and ten, and has still managed to maintain a belief that cakes are better cold than hot. That a consumer will be happier with cold cakes than hot cakes.
When it comes to me sitting down and trying to establish a good excuse as to why I'm not a millionaire yet, I'm not thinking about the time I was spanked. I'm not thinking about all the people who may have patted my bum at one point (which is, sadly, not that many), I'm not thinking about the ineffectual education system that's dominated more by politics than education, I'm not even thinking about the amount of alcohol my father might or might not have consumed, and I'm certainly not thinking about my socio-economic neighbourhood. No, what comes to my mind is that:
I've been brought up by someone who can't even grasp the concept of hot cakes. Even when they are the proverbial horse brought to water, for decades. It's not even just a matter of 'don't let them eat cake', it's a matter of 'hot cakes are the wrong way to present cakes'. With such a catastrophic misunderstanding of the most fundamental customer/consumer principle, with such a shockingly stubborn mindset that refuses to ever even accept the concept of hot cakes no matter how many times they are challenged on the topic… how could anyone who grew up in such an environment ever hope to conquer the world of money… and humanity in general.