What’s This “Cake Eater” Business All About?

Let them eat cake. --- Marie Antoinette, just before her head hit the basket at the base of the guillotine.

The husband and I moved to the Twin Cities almost eight years ago and we have always lived in the burbs. At first we lived in Bloomington. But we didn’t like it because:

1. We were living in the middle of nowhwere
2. We did not have the opportunity to use mass transit if we needed it because we lived in the middle of nowhwere
3. We were tired of spending a half hour in the car---with traffic---just to get to the grocery store
4. We didn’t know our neighbors and we didn’t want to get to know them
5. There were very few places for us to get to on foot

So, we looked around and found a duplex in Edina. We learned quickly that you didn’t say you lived in Edina. We learned that you said you lived in “Minneapolis” or you’d get rather a lot of grief about being a “Cake Eater.”

Edina is a wealthy suburb here in the Twin Cities. So wealthy in fact, that the residents of our fair fiefdom have earned the nickname “Cake Eater.”

What is a Cake Eater? Someone who is into conspicuous consumption simply for the sake of appearance. People here make an epic battle out of keeping up with the Joneses. We are surrounded by Cake Eaters, but the husband and I are not Cake Eaters: we don’t make enough money to qualify for membership. We just happen to live here.

I don’t have any issues with Cake Eaters, per se. If they want to spend all the money they have, and some they borrow, on being cool, they’re allowed. It’s a free country. But it sure is amusing at times when you see the circles they’ll run just to keep up with the perceived norms.