The Cupcake Contest Neal was so excited. His high school was having a bake-off, and the owners of a local cupcake shop were going to judge. Neal had always had a knack for cooking and baking, and he was pretty sure he could win this contest. He'd perfected his classic vanilla cupcake recipe.
On the way to biology class, he asked his friend Liza what she was baking for the contest.
"I'm going to make my grandmother's red velvet cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon," Liza replied.
Neal groaned. Liza's cupcakes sounded so much more creative. Suddenly, his simple vanilla cupcakes seemed lame.
Determined to impress the judges, Neal changed his cupcake recipe. He added a marshmallow filling to each cupcake. To liven up his buttercream frosting, he added purple food dye, lavender oil, and licorice extract. The cupcakes still looked boring, so he garnished them with gold dust, rice paper birds, and edible flower petals.
In spite of all these adventurous touches, his cupcakes turned out lopsided and goopy, and the frosting tasted strongly like licorice. But he was sure the cupcake judges would look highly on how fancy his cupcakes were.
Neal could hardly wait for the contest results to be posted after school. But when he saw the list on the wall, his mouth fell open. He didn't win any prizes, not even as a runner-up. And first place had gone to one of his classmates, Drew Feldman. The description by Drew's cupcakes read, "Classic Vanilla."
Which of the following best describes the main theme or lesson of the story?