Basic Trope: If a food item needs to be taken somewhere, expect something to go wrong.
- Straight: Alice is carrying a cake for Bob and Claire's wedding. She trips and falls face-first into the cake.
- Exaggerated: Alice is carrying the whole wedding feast. She somehow manages to cause a Class Z-4 apocalypse.
- Downplayed: Alice is carrying a cupcake. It flies out of her hand.
- Justified:
- Alice is the least clumsy and least likely to eat the cake.
- Alice baked the cake. And God decided to mess it up for her.
- Inverted: Alice is riding on a cake. The cake flings Alice off For the Lulz while she rides it.
- Subverted: Alice puts the cake down on a cart for maximum safety.
- Double Subverted: It flies off the cart and onto Claire. Whoops...
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't carry any cakes.
- Alice carries a cake and nothing bad happens to it.
- Parodied: Because this is hard in fiction, only The Chosen One can do it.
- Zigzagged: Alice starts off carrying the cake, then she trips and it flies into the air, but she catches it in time, then Diane steals it but Alice gets it back unharmed, then a kid roller skates toward her but misses her and the cake, then a Big Eater tries to eat it but she manages to get the cake to the wedding and the cake's still intact.
- Lampshaded: "Am I Tempting Fate by carrying this cake and expecting nothing to happen to it?"
- Enforced: Rule of Funny, plus Cringe Comedy.
- Invoked: Ida recruits Alice to be the Official Cake Carrier. Exploited soon follows.
- Exploited: The Prankster sees this as a pranking opportunity.
- Defied: Bob and Claire hire a professional, as they don't want a regular person carrying the cake—that's just asking for trouble.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Alice is a fictional character and she's carrying a cake. What's to bet something happens to it?"
- Played for Laughs: Cringe Comedy.
- Played For Drama: Claire is a Bridezilla who bullies Alice about the way she carries the cake.
Back to Carrying a Cake, and make sure you don't drop it!
