It all started with an innocent, unguarded remark. Talking with Intel's PR guy last week about an upcoming news briefing on their 0.18-micron Flash products, I grumbled, "Yeah, that's my birthday, but I work on my birthday so I'll be there."

Now, it's 10 a.m. on a warm, sunny day in Santa Clara. I'm in a windowless conference room at Intel's Robert B. Noyce building trying to deny the existence of a six-layer cake sitting incongruously in the typical coffee-juice-and-bagels spread. Deep red, blue and green balloon decorations festoon its thick whipped cream icing. The cake - all 10K calories of it - has my name on it.

I don't say a word. Maybe it's for some other Jack. Intel's a big company, Jack's a common name. This conference room will be used again. After all, it's only 10 a.m. By 10:15, I'm nailed. At least they don't sing Happy Birthday. At my age, you don't need an additional 100K calories regardless of format. I worry. "What am I gonna do with this cake for the rest of the day? Hope they have a box for it."

They do, but it's not the original box. The cake towers above the rim and, were it not so heavy, would slide around inside. On the elevator, quizzical looks. Carrying your own birthday cake Inside Intel is not an image-enhancing activity.

By the time I reach my car, the cake has grown in height, weight and calorie potential. (Moore's Law Corollary: A cake's fat content doubles every hour it's not eaten.) Balancing on a knee on the car's rear seat, I lift my golf umbrella (it had rained over the weekend) from the car floor and hold the cake and box in the other hand. Lower it to the floor. Think I'm clear until whipped cream icing transmogrifies the sleeve of my blazer. The umbrella had swished over the cake, scooped some whipped cream and slathered it recklessly.

I have no Kleenex, paper towels - nothing - so I clean the umbrella and my blazer with a windbreaker I keep in the trunk. OK, I think. Drop it - and the blazer --off at the cleaners on the way home..

Two stops later, after lunch, the cake has slumped somewhat from the heat inside the car. Whipped cream. Salmonella? The deep red, green and blue balloon decorations have developed a dayglow sheen. At the next stop, I decide to resuscitate it with air conditioning.

The company I visit is a tad security paranoiac. The guard, a large man, growls when he sees my cake. "Maybe I should leave it here?" I ask.

"You see that office across the lobby," he says. "That's I.T. help desk. If you leave it here there won't be a crumb left when you get back. Nothin' I can do about it."

People wonder why you're carrying a birthday cake to a briefing. There is no clever answer, no quip. So I offer to share. They sing Happy Birthday. The interview goes well except for the whipped cream blotches, the red, green, blue icing, on the press release pages we use as a table cloth. (Is that $4 per chip, or $40?) On the way out, there's a new guard, skinny with beady eyes.

"Where'd you get that cake?"

"It's mine. Look. My name's on it." Somebody had eaten "Ja," which for some reason raises more suspicion. But the whipped-cream balloon decorations, in deep red, green and blue, clearly identify it as a birthday cake, not a Trojan horse in cake's clothing, I argue.

He thinks for a second. "You have a security slip for that cake? I can't let you leave without one."

"Are you guys in the cake business or the chip business? Does that look like a friggin' metallization layer? It's strawberry filling!"

He grimaces, shuffles through a drawer of forms and produces one having to do with carrying a firearm. (On the theory, I guess, that if he can get me to sign for a gun then explaining a missing cake will be no problem with his boss.)

"You're wasting your time in Security," I say. "You should be in I.T."

"I don't know nothin' about computers."

"You don't have to. All you need to know is how to make up rules on the fly." While he's pondering a career move, I vanish.

Somewhat the worse for wear, the cake and I arrive home. Put it on the kitchen counter. Shoo the cat off. (He's not supposed to be on the counter, which is exactly why he spends so much time there when we're not home. So does yours, believe it.) My wife arrives and agrees to take the cake to her office tomorrow as an offering to the I.T. gods.

We each have a slice for dessert. It's delicious.

Maybe it isn't such a bad cake anyway. I lift my teacup. Smile. Intel ,OK.

The cat scampers by, leaving behind a trail of deep red, green and blue paw prints on our off-white carpet.

About the Author

Jack Shandle is chief editor of ChipCenter. He firmly believes it is the thought that counts.