you can’t have your cake and eat it

have you ever been annoyed by a common saying?

on a long walk home today, while i was trying to think through some particularly perplexing questions in my life (walking is the best way for me when it comes to stuff like that), this cliche kept randomly popping into my head. i know it has something to do with making an either/or choice, that you can’t reconcile two mutually incompatible situations.. yet the reason why it annoys me is, i just kept thinking "if i have my cake and can't get to eat it, then why let me have the cake in the first place??"

thinking that i might have misunderstood the statement, i came home and surfed the net. besides finding a LOT of recipes on making cakes (using Google), i also found other versions of the statement, such as:

• you can’t eat your cake and still have it (huh?... sounds pretty logical, eh??.. but doesn't this change the entire meaning??)
• "Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?” (old or middle english.. wah.. very cheem.. written in John Heywood’s A Dialogue Conteynyng Prouerbes and Epigrammes of 1562.. very hard to understand.. decided not to crack brain over this one..)
• you can’t eat your cake and have it, too (still rather confusing... but this one sounds more like i can't get to keep the scraps if i can't finish the cake at one go.. hahaha)
• eat your cake and have it (by John Keats at the beginning of his poem On Fame in 1816 - another one i can't understand... if i have already eaten it, surely i would already have it, eh? voice of resignation?? haha..)
• have your cake and eat it (same as original, except in the positive - the one used by all the cake recipes.. an absolute cliche!)

so i remain as confused as ever.... and continue to dislike the saying as much as before..