Rocks as Cakes

My wife's rock group - whom you may recall were introduced back in February - are partaking in a competition. A sandwich bar - which I'll rename Making Biscuits for the sake of keeping everyone happy - is hosting an event intended to benefit local foster children by providing school supplies. I'm not quite sure how it works, but the idea is that we all turn up and paint rocks based on the pastries sold at Making Biscuits. The manager of the establishment is himself a keen painter of rocks, and the first prize will be a $50 gift card.

Painting rocks is really my wife's thing, but she's recruited me to the cause for this one event in the belief that whatever I paint will blow the other contestants out of the metaphorical water. I'm therefore a ringer - a person highly proficient at a skill or sport who is brought in, often fraudulently, to supplement a team, as Wiktionary would have it; but there are worse ways to pass a Saturday afternoon so I've said yes.

We came along to Making Biscuits last night, checking the place out, how to get here, and to take a look at what sort of cakes they sell. I sat shivering for an hour listening to the women talk about babies, which was actually kind of miserable. Today I've been promised that the event won't take long, and that there will be more people. Also, I've brought a jumper and a jacket in hope of surviving the thermonuclear Making Biscuits air conditioning, which feels weird given that it's August here in Texas and that it presently takes about five minutes to roast a frozen chicken by leaving it out on the sidewalk.

Happily, they don't have the AC jacked up quite so high today, and there are maybe fifteen of us taking part which immediately puts me in a better mood. Aside from the manager, I'm apparently the only male in attendance, so it's probably a good thing that I'm reasonably secure in my masculinity and have never felt the need to drive a red sports car. A couple of tables are covered with pots of acrylic paint, jars of water in which brushes soak, and with freshly painted rocks drying at the centre where you might usually expect to find condiments as the women start anew with fresh stones. I buy a fruit tart from the counter. It's topped with slices of strawberry, kiwi, tangerine, and some sort of berry, so featuring a range of colour which should make it interesting to paint. I grab a coffee, take a seat opposite my wife, and we set to work.

I paint in the rough shape of the tart as a white outline. Some young woman sat next to me chatters away, just general conversational stuff with the inevitable emphasis on art and the country of my birth. I realise to my surprise that she's still in school, being somewhat younger than I am, although this probably means she's at university. After a while she finishes painting a stone so as to give it the appearance of a pastry, and resumes her proprietorial duties over some faux-martial arts attraction because another child has turned up wanting a go. Individual squares of wood are stacked near the coffee machine, presumably having been partially sawn through. Customers are invited to karate chop them in half. This is also something to do with school supplies for foster children.

I know a few of the women, so I ask about Mrs. Darkseid, a conspicuously absent rock painter whom I've renamed after the DC Comics villain in reference to her ruthless one woman war against free will.

'She has her own thing. Didn't you hear?'

I didn't hear. 'Her own thing, you say?'

'She organised a rock painting competition for today at some diner. I guess that's where she is right now.'

'Seriously? Same time and everything?'

'Yup.'

'What an amazing coincidence.'

'Yes, isn't it just?'

We all chuckle darkly to ourselves.

I've only met Mrs. Darkseid a couple of times and she seemed harmless enough, but her behaviour has since bordered on mania. The city now has several rock exchange spots, mostly situated in public parks and the like. The women paint rocks and leave them at the rock exchanges for others to take, or to swap with rocks of their own. It's something with no function other than to bring pleasure to those who take part. Most of this has occurred organically, just opportunities taken, things which such and such a person has decided might be a good idea or worth a try; but Mrs. Darkseid began to take a peculiarly proprietorial interest in what the rest of the gang were doing, telling them where they should have a rock exchange, deciding what it should be named and so on. At one point she issued a decree that no baskets were to be left at the rock exchanges. No-one took any notice, then suddenly rock exchanges were vandalised with baskets pointedly thrown into nearby bushes. Mrs. Darkseid of course expressed her anger at the thought of who could do such a deed, because even her own rock exchange had been hit by these monsters, so she claimed. There have been peculiarly batty text messages sent telling some of the women what they are allowed to post on facebook in relation to the painted rocks. Bess set up a rock exchange at the Mission Branch Library down on the southside of the city at the invitation of library staff who thought it would nicely complement the public garden and play area at the rear of the library; so it was done and I did my bit by painting a sign for it on a breeze block. Mrs. Darkseid involved herself - despite the undertaking having nothing to do with her - and had the library rock exchange moved to the front of the building, specifically to the parking lot, apparently for no reason other than as a demonstration of her mighty power.

In the meantime, we've finished painting our rocks, so we take them outside to spray them with glaze. They look pretty good as they dry, arranged as they are in the presently flower-free flower bed.

'You lot should try and have a rock exchange here,' I suggest.

There are a few nods and noises of concurrence, then we realise that Mrs. Darkseid would have a meltdown and get it moved across the parking lot to the side of the road - so as to share the magic with four lanes of heavy traffic or some other reason she'd just thought of. We laugh, because we still can't believe that anyone could be so screwy as to declare themselves supreme controller of something which was supposed to be lightweight and fun. It's a wonder that she hasn't taken to issuing home-made permits and membership cards.

The afternoon, which has actually been a lot more fun than I thought it would be, draws to a close, and the rocks are judged. My fruit tart comes in second. Bess tells me it should have won, but I really don't mind because I feel a little like an imposter and this isn't really my circus. Additionally, I've painted a representation of a pastry, rather than painting a rock so as to give it the appearance of a pastry - a detail required of competition entries which I somehow missed. The first prize goes to a rock painted so as to resemble a chocolate cake. The rock was one half of a stone which had been roughly spherical, and so the winner painted it so as to make it seem like someone had taken a bite from one side. To be honest, that's the rock to which I would have awarded first prize, were I judge.

Sometimes you just have to write these things down because you feel that otherwise no-one will believe you.