Customers from Hell Volume V"REPLICA"

First, a happy story to offset the 'Customer from Hell'.

A few years ago I was commissioned to create a likeness of a local museum (The Rahr West Art Museum). The museum has 2 parts, the newer art gallery addition & the older & historically preserved 3 story mansion. The Museum's president wanted me to recreate the mansion out of gingerbread. It was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder as a fundraiser.

Here is how something like this normally works: an individual donates the $ to pay me for my work, they write it off as a charitable contribution, the institution makes their $ from the sale of the item & everyone is happy.

I ALWAYS spend more time on a project like this than the amount of $ I receive from it. I feel that my extra hours & perfectionism is my donation. Most people are very pleased with an arrangement such as this.

Now I will treat you to the photos of the gingerbread mansion. (The link above will take you to a picture of the building itself.)

For scale: The base of the mansion was aprox. 2' x 2'. It stood roughly 4' tall.

This was a successful project. The persons involved were VERY pleased with the finished results. Yay!


Now...on to my rant. About 2 weeks ago I receive a call from the local courthouse. They are celebrating their centennial with a plan to restore a good portion of the beautiful building. The woman I spoke with explained that I came highly recommended as someone who could recreate the domed courthouse out of cake. "Of course!" I said.

She explained that they had a very limited budget & they needed cake to serve 200 people. As they were giving it away free I suggested the most cost effective option & told her I would give her an additional 10% discount just because. She said they really wanted me to make a small replica, whether or not they were able to order the additional sheet cakes from me. She stressed that it was very important that the cake resemble the courthouse from the stairs all the way up to the dome. I said that I could copy it in exquisite detail! She closed the conversation by saying she had to run it past a few more people yet, but that she would call back the next day either way.

People can be very rude & shallow in a small town. You'd think it would be the opposite. Nay. Very few people return phone calls or emails. (Except Uniquely Yours!) I really didn't think that would be the case here. I didn't expect the entire order but I did EXPECT the courtesy call back. Silly me. In hindsight, I have to wonder if the entire call wasn't just a 'hint' to see if I'd do it for FREE. In your fucking dreams lady! You can't tell me she couldn't collect 10 bucks from every well-to-do person in that building to fund an exquisitely 'Detailed Replica'. Oh, wait, I suppose they need that cash to run their gas guzzling trucks, bmw's, mercedes, lexus' & suv's. Right.

They did find someone else to do it for free. I assume. I mean I hope to hell they didn't pay one cent for the 'courthouse cake' that appeared on the front page of our local rag. I won't even post it here people. Sorry. I know you're dying to see it, too. It was the UGLIEST, most CROOKED cake I've EVER seen! Truly pathetic. If I were the person that was responsible for acquiring that monstrosity I would be embarrassed for the rest of my days. Not to mention whomever made it, because NO ONE took credit for it, in the article anyway. I did try to find a linky for you...no luck. Haha!!! They wouldn't even scan that badboy to put it up on the internet!

Ah well, c'est la vie. Life in a small town keeps getting better & better.