cupcake rage

Ahh, I know I'm touted (like, gently, mildly and in a small pond) for being honest 'n' real, but I have to confess to a certain level of uncomfortablity with the  too-raw expressions of feeling I am moved to post at times, so, it's always nice to have something to move swiftly on to (Dear Me, I almost split an infinitive there).

As always, cupcakes are a big feature of my virtual wordcloud and yesterday  I was alerted to this story of a cupcake rage incident - in Wales, of all places. On the face of it, it's pretty hilarious - some poor woman got to the shop, found them to be sold out of her favourite fairy cake flavour, and trashed the shop - broke glass display cases and reached over the counter and grabbed the owner by the hair!
Move over bulls in china shops, a pms-ing woman in a  cake shop, it's got to become a new saying. It wasn't me, I swear! I thought the saddest part was that she didn't even give the owner a  chance to tell her they'd put on a new batch for her if she waited.

But then, I spotted the real sad part - she had two small children with her. And suddenly, it wasn't so funny anymore, when I thought about two tots living in a world where their mother loses the plot and smashes up shops over tiny little disappointments. Mammy is not well. Children are not safe.

It reminded me of everyone posting Charlie Sheen's rantings all over the place and having a laugh at his expense - or even elevating him to some status that the cool and irreverend and self destructive are so often elevated to. Then I read someone else's article saying, please stop laughing at him, it's not entertainment, he's just showing classic symptoms of bi-polar disorder. And other people saying, please stop lauding a wife-beater.

Now, I have to confess, I haven't really read any of the reports about him, old or new - and I don't know if he's manic depressive or not, though I think it's safe to say that all is not well with him one way or the other, and probably hasn't been in a long time.

But it's so easy to use these out-there stories as entertainment, I think it can desensitise us to the human stories underneath. I want that cupcake one to be funny, but, it's just not, really, is it? It's sad. And a little bit scary.

I wish there was better support, better understanding, better all of it - if nothing else so that I never find myself having an episode in a cupcake shop and having to be led away, handcuffed and covered in frosting.