The Cupcake Economy

Another endearing feature of life here in the District is that the whole city gets up in a tizzy over fads TODAY that happened 3-4 years ago in Los Angeles and New York. One such phenomenon opened here a week or two ago: Hello, Cupcake. Even though most of my compatriots here flee to the East to take advantage of cool ocean breezes, Hello, Cupcake managed to bring together the coiffed lobbyists of K street and the Connecticut Ave policy wonks for a great cupcake feast...or maybe it's been more like a run on the bank!

Hello, Cupcake is one of those gourmet cupcake shops that charges you $3 for cupcakes with charming names like "24 carrots" and "rootbeer float." Allow me to share my feelings about why we normally feel guilty about purchasing such a treat:

- Single-serve cupcakes are usually only available in the big, slightly run-down supermarkets
- These supermarkets usually have those bakeries in the back corner where some 70 year-old woman named "Edna" pulls things out of a questionable case complete with blinking florescent lights
- Management usually sticks Edna in the back because she's the last union employee left in the store, and they just want her to retire, already
- The cupcakes always inevitably have those creepy plastic snowmen heads, balloons, "clown" bears, shamrocks...whatever...stuck in the top. Most of them aren't even edible. That's just wrong.

Edna

You really should feel guilty if you're one of those people who would stop in to get a cupcake from Edna. Shame on you.

But then comes along Hello, Cupcake. They don't have creepy plastic decor in the top. The frosting and cake is higher quality. And, let's be real: they put everything into a pretty box and slap a sexy sticker on the top derived from a Hello, Kitty aesthetic that just makes you feel like a true successful professional. For weeks, elated Washingtonians have been walking up and down the avenue beaming with their boxes of cupcakes (even though they spent their entire lunch hour in line).

What's particularly amusing about the whole phenomenon is that Hello, Cupcake has been running out of cupcakes everyday! So, they've started to RATION them: 4 cupcakes/person. Enter: the cupcake economy. These cupcakes have become such a hot commodity here on Connecticut Ave that an entire workplace economy has developed around their trade. Have a project for which you could really use some help from another employee? Offer them a cupcake. Are you THAT GUY who always offers to share a cab with your workmates for your meetings up on the Hill and doesn't ever have cash...thereby owing a substantial sum to your colleagues? No problem...offer a cupcake. You see, the limited nature of these little frosted dreams in the District has rendered them their weight in gold.

God forbid they offer some kind of "holiday" cupcake basket.

How long will this last? The answer: 3-4 years after the cupcake fad died down in Los Angeles and New York.