I am in an audience, waiting for the reception to begin. The huge cake with chocolate and white frosting on it is at the front of the room. I am seated in the front row at the far right. I notice that the cake has far too much frosting on it and is dropping as the chocolate globs drift down the sides. I want to help, so I go and scrape off the globs of frosting and try to frost the cake again. I take huge quantities of frosting off and put it on a cardboard. Then I look again and notice that I have really made a mess of this cake. There apparently hadn't been too much and I had put chocolate where the white was and so on. I feel embarrassed and I feel badly for Andrea who made the cake. She comes in and I feel compelled to apologize and explain my actions to her. She looks at me and then at the cake and is appalled. She turns and leaves the room. Her cake is ruined and she feels angry and miserable. I feel bad I accidentally made the mess, but I am also aware of a sense of revenge or satisfaction, which I try to minimize or deny. I see my mother seated at the front of the room. Another woman, younger, comes and sits next to her, rather close. My mother shifts her position to create more distance and then to my surprise she puts her arm along the back of the chair the other woman is seated in. She is careful to keep her distance and not actually make physical contact with the woman. I also notice that there are many square parts of the cake all along the front of the room in piles. It was a pretty big cake and tastes just fine. Nobody else seemed upset that the frosting wasn't perfect.