Last Sunday, my husband, Micky, and I snuck away to have dinner together for our anniversary. We went to the restaurant Flyt in Deadwood for a fabulous steak dinner and creme brulee and bread pudding for dessert. We put our reservations in and had 45 minutes to kill in the casino before our table was ready.

As we were walking through the casino and gift shops we found a couple of chairs perfect for people watching. We sat down and were reminiscing about some of the things we have done together for the past 29 years. Many of our memories have the same theme: Don’t Think About it, Just Do it!

One story we keep coming back to was when we were in Las Vegas for my brother’s 21st birthday. My parents have this tradition of taking their children to “Sin City” for their 21’s birthday to celebrate. It is a tradition I am excited to start in our family next year with our oldest son. Crazy how time flies!

Anyway, we were fortunate to be invited along for my brother’s birthday. One evening we were at the Excalibur enjoying playing the slot machines and video poker (back in the day when you still used coins and could hear them plunking down into your tray when you won). It was very late at night and several hours since our last meal so Micky and I went walking around to see if there was anything like a snack bar open.

We were walking by another closed snack bar and I noticed a newlywed couple were eating their wedding cake at a high-top table by themselves. It was a huge cake for about 30-40 people and it was just the two of them eating it with a couple of plastic forks.

Micky and I were still trying to decide what to do when I noticed that the couple was leaving. They boxed up their cake and they placed the box on top of the trash can and walked away!! I couldn’t believe it! “Couldn’t they nibble on it during their honeymoon?” I thought to myself.

Off in the distance was a custodian vacuuming and cleaning his assigned area of the casino. A crazy thought popped into my mind. “What if we took the leftover cake to our room?” I asked my husband of only a few years. Here is the conversation we had…paraphrased of course.

Micky: Seriously?!

Me: Why not? Let’s just eat the damn cake! It’s perfectly good cake if we stay away from the parts they ate.

Micky: What if they come back for it? What if we get in trouble?

Me: They obviously aren’t coming back for it. Let’s grab it and take it to our room.

Micky (reluctantly): Oh, alright.

I grabbed the cake off the trash can and we headed up to our room. Once up to our room, we set the cake down on the counter and took a look at it. It was a white cake with a strawberry and cream filling with a white buttercream frosting. The couple had only eaten a couple of pieces of the cake.

Micky used his credit card to cut off the section they had and the rest of the cake was ours!

We have had experience eating cake without utensils. On our honeymoon, my mom sent some of our wedding cake in an ice cream bucket…with no forks! It was so fun feeding each other while driving through the Black Hills during our honeymoon.

The next morning, while we were getting ready to plan our day, I asked my mom to come to our room. We told her that we had breakfast in our room and wanted to know if she was hungry. She came to our room and saw the gigantic cake in our room. Shocked, she asked, “Where did that come from?!”

We told her the story and she politely declined on a piece of cake. We called my brother and sister-in-law over and they declined as well. I’m sure my brother thought we were crazy! Oh, well. More cake for us!!

When we go through life we have to make many decisions. Some decisions are very difficult and need planning while others are fairly easy. Sometimes the best decisions we have made happened when we didn’t think about it. We go with our gut instincts and just go for it. Thinking about every detail can sometimes lead to heartbreak and things not going as we had planned. When you eat the cake, there are no expectations. So whatever happens, happens. Try it sometime. Just go with your gut, let it happen as it should, and eat the damn cake!

What is a decision you had to make that you didn’t think about it? You just went with your gut. What was the result of that decision? Please share in the comments.