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Having a graduation cake is nothing controversial if anything it’s expected when celebrating someone graduating from high school or college. When Cara Koscinski ordered her son, Jacob Koscinski a cake for graduating high school she was met with some roadblocks from the grocery store. She wanted the cake to read “Congrats Jacob! Summa Cum Laude class of 2018” but Publix refused to write “cum” on a cake.
The Charleston, South Carolina native graduated from a Christian homeschooling program with a staggering 4.79 GPA. His GPA means he graduated with summa cum laude, which is Latin for “with the highest distinction.” Cara wanted to celebrate her son’s accomplishments with a cake.
While ordering the cake online on Publix’s website a warning popped up saying, “Profane/special character not allowed.” So she wrote, “Congrats Jacob! Summa — Laude class of 2018” and explained in the special instructions that she wanted the cake to say “Summa Cum Laude” instead.
When her husband went to go pick up the cake “cum” was censored out with three dashes. “We stared at the cake and it was shocking,” Cara told BuzzFeed News. “We had no idea it was going to say dot dot dot.”
The funny thing was that Cara’s 70-year-old mom didn’t understand why the word cum was considered a profanity. Poor Jacob had to explain to his grandmother the meaning of the word. “I tried to break down what the word meant and she was open-mouthed the entire time,” Jacob told BuzzFeed News. “I had this humiliated look on my face.”
Jacob said the experience was “funny” and not traumatic so that’s good at least.
Cara called up the grocery store and complained about the cake and how it was Latin. The manager explained that he didn’t know it was Latin and that gets “ignorant requests for cakes” all the time.
“Shame on you Publix for turning an innocent Latin phrase into a total embarrassment,” Cara wrote on Facebook.
