It was like the "Buy Crap" party from hell.

And even worse because I paid to go!

Everyone's been to those parties.  Let's say it's a "cooking and kitchen" party.  You go, you eat, you drink, the nice lady shows you all the wonderful things that you can do with all of these gadgets that cost at least $19.99 + shipping, and they pass out the magazines and order forms.  I'm using a "cooking and kitchen" party as my example, because I went, I ate, I drank, I ordered at one of these a few years ago.  I was good and only ordered a cook book.  But when I cracked it open to test out my first recipie, I realized, it was written in "cooking and kitchen" party-ese.  

So, instead of saying separate egg whites, beat until frothy, add garlic and coat chicken in the mixture, my cook book said using your stage 2 press, mince garlic into a fine pulp.  Take your 1/8 cup spoon measurer and place egg in, allowing the yolk to rest in the spoon.  Using your #3 whisk, beat mixture until a light foam appears.  Now, take your three-plate-divider and allow chicken to rest in the purple tray -- thus insinuating that there was NO way you could make a chicken parmesan without $300 worth of "cooking and kitchen" party accessories.  

Why am I still reading this and why is there a picture of cake at the top of the page?  I hear you.  I'm going to answer that.

So I've been saying for a while that I wanted to take a cake decorating class.  I do a pretty ok job whipping out the kids' birthday cakes, but wanted to really learn what I was supposed to be doing.  Tucked inside my Valentine's card from my parents is a gift card to our craft store for the 5 week course!  YAY!  I excitedly take Nugget with me to register, but was so excited that I left the gift card at home.  The cashier let me go ahead and sign up for the class, and I confirmed that I was good to go after I paid for the class.  I came back later, with both kids, to pay and asked if there was anything I needed to bring.  Nope!  The teacher has everything.

One of my best buds took the course (in a different state) so I had heard a lot about it, and knew obviously that we were going to be decorating real cakes.  However, in my pipe dream, the teacher would provide us with little mini cakes, disposable parchment icing bags and tips, but would show us how great the "real things" were so we could all buy what we wanted/needed either during or after the class.

WRONG.

I show up, excited to get my cake on, sit down only to realize everyone has a box in front of them that says, "Course 1."  Hmmm.  She didn't give me that.  ::raises hand:: Do I need one of those?  Oh yes, they are available in the cake section of the store.  Well, crap.  As I sulk over to the cake section, I am thinking about all of the bags and tips I have at home that I COULD HAVE brought with me, but nooooo.  I spy the box... and the price tag.  Well, great, now I'm $50 into this thing, and I haven't done anything yet!  

THEN, we spend the next 20 minutes talking about all of the GREAT cake company products that you need to get in order to take the class that are NOT in the kit.  Awesome.  Dollar signs, dollar signs, dollar signs.  

Next, we make icing.  She holds up the most expensive brand of confectioners sugar and says, "This is the only kind you should use," then the most expensive brand of shortening and repeats the phrase.  I'm surprised when she got to the add milk section, she didn't say, "And I always drive out to the organic dairy farm and pull the milk straight from the cow."  Ugh.  Then she mentions that this is what we need to bring next week to class.  I'm still in shock at what I've had to put into this already, now I have to make and bring in my own icing?!  Luckily, the gal across from me raised her hand and confirmed that we needed to do this, and she says, "Oh yes," then  under her breath, "along with a cake."  WHAT?!?  So I pay for the class, have to buy this kit, now you are telling me I have to buy all of these other accessories AND bake my own cakes every week AND make my own icing?!?  Why the heck did I not just pull up a youtube video and do all of this from the comfort of my own kitchen?!

Ugh.  So after class, she walks us over to the cake decorating section to show us where we can get everything we need, but I am fuming at this point.  All I could do was add up what we all paid for the class and what we all paid for the stupid box.  Add too it everything that we "need" located conveniently in the front of the store.  I didn't feel as bad though.  One girl in the class is maybe 13, and her mom picked her up.  "Hang on mom, I have to get a few things for next week."  She scurries off and reappears with a cake taker, powdered meringue, a giant icing tip, another icing bag, the three stared tip, couplet and bag and some clown heads.  The mom, flabbergasted, takes it all from her daughter and says, "Well.  Is that all?"  Nope!  I still need the cake tuner, a leveler, gel, parchment and some disposable piping bags!  I thought the mom was going to throw up.

After I got home and basically exploded and almost cried a little, Hubs said just do it, you know you want to take the class and yeah this sucks that we didn't know about all of the added expense up front, but just do it.  You needed some new tips and you can always use a few new bags.  I called my buddy who had done it before and she suggested going ahead and buying the mega tackle box kit all at once instead of buying every little thing as you need it.  It would also be good because I would finally have a safe (locked) place away from the kiddos.  So I broke down and bought this bad boy (cue angels singing):

Yup.  I went all out and bought the 101 piece tool kit.  From the Craft store's competitor.