I Like Cupcake Wars

My whole life has prepared me for this very moment. I am scheduled to compete in a televised cooking battle during a programming marathon that will air sometime after 2 a.m. on a random Wednesday.

A series of phone and Skype interviews with production assistants, a few callbacks with associate producers, and finally getting someone to cover my shifts at work for a few days has culminated in what will no doubt be my greatest confectionary victory.

I am equipped with everything I need to vanquish any and all foes. I have my adorable and not in any way understated apron, my arsenal of bowls and spoons and spatulas and mixers, and perhaps most important of all, a bloodlust to eviscerate anyone who stands between me and a modest cash prize that is insufficient to make a down payment on a used 2007 Kia Spectra, much less a sizeable investment to launch the gourmet cupcake shop I talk about opening in my on-camera intro.

You see, I am no ordinary amateur baker. I am a creature of culinary conflict. I am a vehicle of war. I am a weaponized baking machine. My veins pump fondant. I weep streams of tiny silver dragees. I ejaculate lemon cream cheese filling. Admittedly, that last one is extremely painful. But you get the idea.

I have tasted the spoils of battle at countless family brunches and neighborhood bake sales, and now I will conquer a soundstage designed to approximate a fully functioning kitchen and stocked pantry. At a moment’s notice I am prepared to deploy years of experience, training and alchemical wizardry to spit sugary spring daisies from the tip of a frosting gun, gingerly sprinkle edible glitter onto shaved chocolate bark and erect tiny pastel graduation caps out of the thinnest of candy slivers. Whatever the weird and seemingly arbitrary rules of this idiotic competition demand, I will deliver the sweetest treats while I feast on the heart meat of my opponents.

I am ready for your silly games, host. I am prepared for your inflated critiques, guest judges absolutely no one has ever heard of or seen before. I laugh at your melodramatic musical cues and their overwrought strains, audio engineer working late in an editing bay simultaneously piecing together bed music for a documentary style series about weirdos who hoard Fingerhut catalogs and a home renovation show starring the woman who sang the hook on C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” (the actual singer, not the model in the video).

This cupcake war will end only after every single one of my combatants has been returned to their rightful place in hell. They will all perish in an ocean of buttercream, pummelled and bruised by caramelized maple bacon clusters, their lungs overflowing with thick chocolate ganache.

They will taste defeat and it will be moist and delicious. They will fall at my hand whilst it clutches a whisk covered in gory entrails. You call this a challenge? I call this a cupcakewalk. I love this. I live for this.