Story Archive

That Takes the Cake

Marsy Flores of Pasadena, Texas, had everything ready to go for her daughter’s high school graduation party, and headed to Walmart to pick up the cake she had ordered. “They didn’t have our order,” Flores found when she got there. “They didn’t have anything ready.” Employees were apologetic and offered to decorate any of their other cakes in stock and give it to her for free. She chose one, they did the decorations, and she took it home. But the alternative wasn’t quite what Flores expected: the replacement cake was a frosted block of Styrofoam. “Not only did they mess up one time,” she complained, “they did it twice!” She again complained to Walmart, which gave her a gift certificate, but when a reporter followed up a store spokesman shrugged it off with a terse statement: “Incident was a result of a misunderstanding. The matter has been resolved.” (RC/KPRC Houston) ...Or, “we figured the family wanted a decorated Styrofoam cake.”