cups of cake (II)

Just a little before 10:30 last night, my cell phone rang. "Hello?" I said, sheepishly having seen the caller ID. My brother T____ wasted no time with a greeting "Are you near a computer?" he asked.
I was digging through the linen shelves. "Um, no, I mean yeah I am. But I'm getting a measuring tape right now."

See, I had forgotten to measure the muffin tins again. These aren't any old muffin tins. They are the jumbo muffin tins we bought so we could make big cupcakes. We did make big cupcakes and they were great but T___ decided they needed liners. The regular liners turned out to be too small and so nearly a month ago, T____ began his quest for the right sized muffin tin/cupcake baking liner. I have supported this quest but I have been putting off the measuring. Just not something I had time to do when I thought to do it and something I'd forget all about when I had the time.

A few weeks ago, he emailed me this link - an online outlet with all kinds of cupcake liners. I've felt a mild but growing guilt every time I've thought about having not measured the tins.

T____ continued on for a moment before he processes what I said. "You need to be, I just sent you something so check you email...wait, what about a tape measure?"
"The email" I reminded him "You sent it like two days ago saying 'It puts the measuring tape in the muffin tin...it does this whenever it is told!'? Well, I'm getting the tape now."
T laughed. "Oh god, it's about time! Ok well you have to go to your email and watch this."


I watched it.

He came back on. "That just doesn't stop being funny. This may be one of those things I need to watch many times in a row."

Throughout the conversation that followed, T____ played me the "ASs-TRO-PHYz-I-CIST" clip at least three more times over the phone. "wait wait, hang on....ASs-TRO-PHYz-I-CIST! bwahahahahah".

The conversation that followed was how to measure the muffin tin. See, this page my brother sent has many more liner sizes than I realized there were cupcake/muffin sizes.
A strong contender was "The circus freak" or "Circus cupcake" - it was tall...at least from the picture. It measures 2 1/4" x 1 3/8". One would think then that given the tallness of the cupcake, the 2 1/4 refers to the height.
"No, L___, what? How many? No. That's not it...is it? Wait. No, it can't be" my brother alternately mumbled and decreed into the phone. No one was interrupting him but himself.
"T____ seriously, look at it. Oh except I just realized all of the ones that start with 2 1/4" are the same picture, regardless of the size of the second measurement. Shit....well still, I think the first number must be depth."
"Maybe it's diameter" my brother offered helpfully.
"We're measuring diameter. That's what I've been calling 'width'."
I called A_____ in to confer. After poking around a bit trying to see if he could help deduce the correct correlates for the measurements posted on the baking liner site, he contributed a URL for something called "Optimum muffin-tin sizes and corrected potential energy curves in the MSXα method. Application to the a₁ and t₂ curves for TiF₄."

"as-tro-phys-i-cist" A____ whispered to me when I opened it in one window so as not to interrupt T____ who was still on the phone debating whether the first number consistently refered to the same muffin tin measurement across the many cupcake liner sizes listed on the site.

For the next half hour, T___ and I were stuck chasing down leads only to find more variables and few definitive answers. It reminded me of him and me shopping. We are hell on wheels in retail stores, which is odd since we both worked retail as younger people. Set up loose in a store and we will wreck something - completely unintentionally.

The cupcake discussion swirled on "Did you say ours was 1 7/8" deep by 15/16" wide?"
"The tape measure isn't marked into 16ths. Who the hell would go down to 16ths if there was no mark?"
"I think they are making this shit up."
"That's either like one inch or nearly two, if they got confused about 8/8 being one and double that being two."
"Hey you know what? Maybe it's fucking circumference and radius."
"Astrophysicist"
"Don't you love how they suddenly switch from non-common denominator fractions up top to decimals in the bottom set of liners?"

In the end my brother ordered a small set of these ones, which I suspect may be rather small. I told him if they aren't the right size, I'll use them to give the cat treats (the cat is on a restricted diet so "treats" are his regular food presented in novel ways...he truly does respond to this). This was an agreeable option for everyone.

All in all, it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had with my brother in a while.