The Little White Lie...

Have you ever told a little white lie?

Alice, new to the community, was asked to bake a cake for the Baptist Church Ladies' Group in Tuscaloosa, but she forgot to do it until the morning of the bake sale. After rummaging through her cabinets, Alice found an angel food cake mix and quickly made it while she was getting ready for work, drying her hair, and helping her son pack for Scout camp.

When Alice took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was ruined. She thought, "Oh goodness, there's no time now to bake another cake."

This cake was important to Alice because she wanted to fit in with the folks at her new church and in her new community. So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake. Alice found it in the bathroom - a roll of toilet paper. She plopped the toilet paper into the center of the cake and covered it with icing. The finished product looked beautiful.

Before dropping the cake off at the church and heading for work, Alice woke her daughter Amanda and gave her money to attend the bake sale as soon as it opened at 9:30, with instructions to buy the cake and bring it home. When Amanda arrived at the sale, she discovered her mother’s beautiful cake had already been sold. She phoned her mother to give her the bad news, and Alice was horrified. Everyone would find out about her cake. What would they think? She would be ridiculed and ostracized. That night, Alice lay awake in bed, thinking about the scandal her toilet roll cake would create. How would she ever be able to face her new friends.

The following day, Alice had been invited to attend a bridal shower at the home of a fellow church member. Alice was reluctant to attend, because the hostess was a snob from one of the founding families of Tuscaloosa, who had looked down her nose at Alice. However, having RSVPd, Alice couldn't think of a believable excuse to stay home. She attended the luncheon and tried not to think about the cake.

The meal was elegant and the company was as Alice had expected -- snobbish. At the end of the meal, and to Alice's horror, the cake in question was presented to the luncheon guests for dessert. Alice felt the blood drain from her body when she saw her cake. She began to tell the hostess not to serve the cake, but before she could get the words out, the Mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!" ... to which the hostess replied,

"Thank you, I baked it myself..."

Alice smiled as she thought, "God is a woman, and She has a sense of humor."