Adventures in Precarious Cake Baking

I am baking a cake.  It's a cake I have baked before, but, for some reason, it didn't look right before I put it in the oven.  You know what I mean? The texture was a bit off.  It hadn't risen as much as it was supposed to.  The crumbly, buttery topping looked a little, well, not really crumbly or buttery.  This is why only brave people bake cakes.  Less adventuresome people make cupcakes, so that they can taste one before serving it to a crowd of unassuming folks gathered for dinner.  Rational people bake brownies, that way, even if the middle is undone, they can still cut around it, coat it in powdered sugar and no one knows the difference.  It takes a different kind of person to bake a cake.

Today, I am one of those people.  I am unafraid.  I will boldly carry my pan into our friend's house with nary an apology if it's slightly gooey in the middle.  If the left side has sunk clear to the bottom.  If there are charred, burned bits decorating the top.  Because I am a cake baker.  And we are a fearless, unapologetic kind.