Happy Birthday

It is a strange, strange world we live in.

Has anyone picked out a Carvel ice cream birthday cake lately? They come in a variety of shapes and decorations, easy to choose from in the store's freezer showcase. There are football shaped cakes, smiley faced cakes, cupcake looking cakes, and then there's the one my wife and I picked out for our 6-year old granddaughter on Sunday in Pleasantville.

The cake made Olivia and her older sister laugh. My daughter laughed. Our other daughter laughed when a picture was sent to her on an iPhone. Our son-in-law didn't laugh, but he does work a good deal, and likely doesn't spend as much time online as they seem to. Are there any alert readers out there who know what is depicted on the cake we picked out? I'll give you a hint. It is an emoji. That's right, there's a cake with an emoji on it. No labeling on the box telling us what the emoji means, however.

And so, what does that brown emoji represent? Poop. That's right, we picked out a cake decorated with a poop emoji.

Carvel ice cram cakes are good, and since a good deal of it was consumed despite what the brown swirls were trying to represent, there was no chance to get our money back. And frankly, I wouldn't have anyway. The experience of buying a poop emoji cake for a 6-year old grandchild is way too good to be wiped by by a refund.

Of what use is a "poop" emoji? Tell someone symbolically you feel shitty? A Google definition tells us it is generally used to signify bad content (restaurant reviews on Yelp?) or self-deprecatingly. I
mean the poop is smiling, so how unfriendly can this emoji be? And how realistic? I've looked back. We've all looked back. Have you ever seen your poop smile back at you? Make smiley faces at you? I didn't think so.

Emojis of course are the millennial hieroglyphics for the 21st century. Who issues them, anyway? A control board, like they do for domain names? I know recently a new batch has been made available. Do users get updates?

I always had a cellphone that took pictures, but now I have my daughter's iPhone 5s after she upgraded to a higher number. Now Dad gets the hand-me-downs. Stick around long enough and life is a boomerang.

I learned how to forward the picture of the birthday cake to a friend I used to work with, and asked if she could identify what was depicted on the cake. This person is nearly a generation younger than I am, so I felt there was a good chance they would know what it is. Response?

Poopies!!!!
LMAO

Yeah, very funny, laughing your ass off.

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