so my beautiful wife Valerie for some reason purchased some Playtime Barney the Dinosaur Cupcakes (she claims it was the purple icing and i quote – “that was the only reason”) and decided to make them for cell tonite (church, not terrorist) and so she did – the actual cupcakes were green in hue and she was not mightily impressed and we were also one cupcake holder paper cup vibe short of the twelve they had promised us and then when she made the icing and tasted it she was grossed out as it had a chemicly (i said marzipanny but chemicly was the word i was looking for) kind of taste and was really not nice at all – so with a cry of “you can do what you want with them cos i’m not touching them any more” she ‘gracefully’ stamped up the stairs and into her office and the door was lightly closed with hardly a sound at all…

i had to defend her honour and so i grabbed Excalibur… i mean Toshiba (my laptop make, it’s not named ‘Toshiba’ except by the company) and internetted the Snowflake people who produce Playtime Barney the Dinosaur Cupcakes and found a contact email address and sent Gary an email – although before i got to the contact page i realised that Snowflake also make those premix packets we love so much (choc chip, chocolate, choc mint chip and savoury muffins plus their waffle mix which we use to make flapjacks as it does it better than their flapjack one) and so i started with some good vibes about how we like those and then proceeded to castigate (no, no, castigate, means take issue with) them on their horrible horrible icing.

that was this afternoon around 3pm and i just received at 5.30pm one of the funniest phone calls of my life where a dude from Snowflake phoned Mr Brett Fish Anderson? to apologise and tell me they are going to send the email to head office – with both the compliments and the complaints – and to confirm my address so they can send correspondence (within 7 to 14 working days) and confirm that my cellphone number they just called me on is my cellphone number and every time he apologised (four to six at least) for the barney cupcakes he would add “especially the icing” and of course the phone call was recorded for some kind of reason and the dude made me write down a reference number (what? For when i phone and complain that my seven to fourteen days correspondence has not arrived on time?) and as i type i just got an sms – “Thank you for contacting the Premier Foods Careline. We are delighted to receive your feedback and to be of service to you” and of course a repeat of the reference number (ARE…YOU…KIDDING…ME…?) in case i didn’t write it down properly the first time? For when i phone and complain that my seven to fourteen days correspondence has not arrived on time i imagine…

seriously, i did everything i could do not to laugh.

there is a lesson to be learned though and i will explain what it is when Snowflake have sent a big box of premixes for us to enjoy.

in the meantime, stay away from the Playtime Barney the Dinosaur Cupcakes – the free gift of a light switch cover with pictures of Barney on it is probably not quite enuff to make the experience worth it… oh, and Valerie (the beautiful), next time go for the purple food colouring…

especially the icing…