A Boxed Culinary Delight

How many times have you opened a package and taken a look at some of the more bizarre instruction manuals that come with a product? I remember opening a package of chemical fireplace logs and finding the warning that the contents of the box were flammable. You think so? There are countless examples of these strange pronouncements all over the web or floating around in those constantly forwarded email jokes. But as I always enjoying a challenge, I tried to replicate a manual. My children’s birthdays are all in late winter/early spring, so when they decamped for university our birthday rituals of celebrating with a cake was disrupted. To help ease their loneliness (or maybe mine), on their birthdays I sent an overnight shipment that held a frozen iced slab cake, a box of candles, some tubes of decorating icing, some candies and my instructions on how to proceed with the package.

Here it is as follows, if you would like to download a copy of it

http://www.filefactory.com/file/a1hd2c5/n/Boxed_Culinary_Experience_Instruction_Manual_2008.pdf :




A picture of the decorated cake is at the end of the manual.

Boxed Culinary Delight©
Instruction Manual - Version 2.56784

To glean the most out of your Boxed Culinary Delight© please follow the simple to use instructions as follows; Tradition usually dictates that you start on Step One.
1) Open Box and remove the Culinary Delight© .
2) Retrieve the candied writing utensils from the packaging and apply to the surface of the Culinary Delight© that is pleasing to your eye. That is not implying that the candied substance should be applied in your eye. Candied substance is often used to impart messages of well being or greetings on the surface of your culinary delight. It has been determined that using phrases such as, “Happy Birthday Dickwad”, does not elicit the positive emotional response that is intended by this product. It is recommended that a phrase such as “Happy Birthday Catherine” is much more appropriate. NOTE. If you have used this suggestion and decorated your Culinary Delight© with this phrase and your name is not Catherine then you have breached the intellectual guidelines and the warranty is rendered NULL and VOID. Please see the warranty section of this manual.
3) Although a large part of a pleasant experience with your Culinary Delight© , the element of surprise in not recommended for the preparation of your Culinary Delight© . If you attempt to apply the candied substance while blindfolded in an attempt to surprise yourself, you may being causing harm to the environment as well as inflicting emotional scars on anyone who has to look at it.
4) Once Step 3 is completed you may enjoy the delectable taste of your Culinary Delight© . However, if the product tastes like a combination of Kraft processed cheese slices (available where laws are applicable) and a MacDonald’s hamburger (available where no culinary laws are applicable), then please refer back to Step One and ensure you have followed that step precisely. If you have already applied the candied substance to the box and not the Culinary Delight© , please scrape the candied substance off the box and reinsert it back into the appropriately colored tubes and then restart the procedure on the surface of your Culinary Delight© and not the box. Do not spend more than 4 hours inserting the candied substance back into the squeezable tubes as this has shown to cause irreparable damage to central nervous systems. Any attempt to reinsert candied substance into the tubes using any combination of your mouth, lips and a drinking straw will rendered the warranty, NULL and VOID.
5) Once the previous Steps have been successfully completed, please remove from the accompanying box the wax colored sticks and insert them in the surface of the Culinary Delight© . In some cultures each wax colored stick represents a single year of life or in some cases represents one basis point in your IQ (please note that there are only 20 wax sticks in the package). Insert the wax sticks with the white fluffy end up, this is used for the incendiary portion of the Culinary Delight© . At the appropriate time, when all wax sticks are in place, strike a match to ignite the fluffy white end of the wax sticks. If at this time, there is a sickening odor of burning flesh, then there is a distinct possibility that you have grasped the wrong end of the match and are causing an extreme amount of pain to yourself. Before any further damage, please extinguish the fire and repeat this step once again holding the other end of the match.
6) Once the previous steps have been completed and the fire department has left, the Culinary Delight© should be presented in the appropriate manner. In certain societies, birthday greetings are often sung to the recipient at this time. If at all possible do not enjoy this moment alone. If necessary pay someone to attend. This will make your culinary experience all the more delightful. If you are alone at this time and as you stare forlornly at the Culinary Delight© you start singing in woeful tones, “Happy Birthday to Me”. Simply blow out the offending colored wax sticks and go cry in the corner. Unfortunately, this moment will probably stick with you until the termination of all life functions.
7) Enjoy your Culinary Delight© . Product is not intended to be saved and used in a yearly fashion. Please dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner. If necessary, flush twice.

WARRANTY

This product is prohibited by law in the states, provinces and regions where sensibility and reason are the primary foundation of a just and fair society.

The product warranty is rendered NULL and VOID if this is written or read in the English language. If this instruction manual is presently being read in an obscure dialect of East Timourian German or any other language recognized by the Null and Void Act of Congress (1832), then product is NULL and VOID. If this is the case, please refer back to the beginning of this section and re-read it in English. Please repeat this procedure until the instructions are clearly recognized as English. This raises a distinct philosophical question as to the concept of a universal language that is interpreted by the eyes of the preceptor. For example, if you hold this manual upside down, reflected in a mirror and read while crossing your eyes, skipping rope on one foot and humming, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and still understand its’ content, my point has been proven. If however, this is witnessed by anybody except close family, please prepare yourself to be admitted to your local mental health facility.

This NULL and VOID is not to be confused with the wildly popular Icelandic throat humming duo Knull and Vöyd. Whose collection of their interpretation of Barry Manilow’s hit singles is sweeping the Inuit communities. However caution must be expressed as reports have trickled in that Inuit hunters’ who listen to repeated playing of “Copacabana” have caused inappropriate sexual behavior with their hunted seals. These seals, of course have no relationship to Seals and Crofts, an American singing duo or Hall and Oates another American singing duo, which ironically have no relationship to the Country group Haulin’ Oats. Previous studies have shown an increased occurrence of suicidal ideation in any group forced to listen to any rendition of Barry Manilow songs.

For this warranty to be in effect, product must be returned in its’ original packaging, with its’ original sales receipt and it’s original salesperson attached. It must be returned in person to our Head Office located in a small building beside the smelly cheese shop located in Kuala Lumpur. Please note that our offices are not open on the second Tuesday of every month as it is laundry day in Kuala Lumpur. It is also advised not to visit Kuala Lumpur on the second Monday of every month because you would never notice just the smelly cheese shop and it makes for a very unpleasant work day.

This product is NULL and VOID when all conditions are not met to the satisfaction of whoever is working the phones that day. He or she may decide what is NULL and VOID and what isn’t NULL and VOID. In fact I just like writing NULL and VOID for the sheer enjoyment of everything NULL and VOID. NULL and VOID. NULL & VOID, NULL/VOID ,N&V. EL NULLO de VOIDO.

To acknowledge acceptance of this warranty you must sign below where indicated by the “X”. If your signature is an “X” then note that this is not your signature, just a regular “X”to indicate where to make your mark. Please sign it here. Not here. There. At the bottom by the “X”. If you had to re-read any part of that this warranty is NULL and VOID.

It has occurred to me that this warranty is longer than the instruction manual, which is appropriate because we have no intention of ever refunding your money or the product. If you received product as a gift, please do not feel that this in any way represents how important people feel you are in their lives. They sent this as an after thought or out of some guilt feelings. It is probably their way of trying to avoid getting a phone call from you in the dead of the night wondering where you went wrong.. This product is guaranteed to not work as intended or not as intended, however you want to look at it. The money is mine, mine, mine.

©Culinary Delight, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (by the smelly cheese shop)

Reference:
Null and Void Act of Congress (1832). An act enacted by Thomas J. Null, an American Senator from Obsingawing Wisconsin. This Act reflects his belief that no one is responsible for their actions if you declare how irresponsible you actually are. This Act has recently been used in the USA and Canada by the governments of George W. Bush (a second cousin of the Null family) and Stephen Harper (ironically closely related to the Voids of Montreal).

Warranty Signature: X

© Patrick D. Scott 2008. All rights reserved worldwide.

It turned out it was my daughter's roommates birthday as well, so the whole floor of her residence got in on the decorating job as you can probably tell.