Help me out here...

This is a totally random post, but I need some help figuring something out...

SO, last Saturday, Dean, Ayla, and I were invited to Bill and Taylor's house for dinner (parents of adorable twins, Paige and Paxton) and I was planning on bringing a salad and a dessert. The salad was a no-brainer, of course. Chop up a bunch of stuff. Throw it into a bowl. Toss it. Done. For dessert, I decided to make an angel food cake and top it with CoolWhip and some strawberries and blueberries...easy enough, right? I thought so.

With my brand new angel food cake pan and some cake mix from good 'ol HyVee, I ventured home and started mixing it all up. I poured the batter into the two-piece pan and let it sit on the counter while I waited for the oven to heat up. I picked up the pan to put it into the oven and discovered that the batter was leaking all over the counter. ERG.

This is where all of you come in...WHAT did I do wrong?! Is there some magical way to get the two pieces of the pan to stick together so it doesn't leak? Is the answer blatantly obvious and I'm just a huge dumbass? It's driving me nuts! I'm not going to be able to return the stupid thing because I took the label off and I have no idea where the receipt is...probably forever-lost in the black hole I call a purse. So if I am forced to keep it, I need to figure out how to use it correctly. (Otherwise I'm going to have to go "Office Space" on the sucker.)

Here it is with the pieces put together...looks like a normal angel food pan:

(I paid Ayla big bucks to be my product model)

And here it is as two separate pieces:

HOW does it work?

And just in case you're wondering, I went back to HyVee and BOUGHT a cake. Had I thought about this much simpler option in the first place, I would have chosen it and not had sticky cake batter oozing all over my kitchen counter.

On a completely different subject, our trip to Cancun is less than a week away...I might have to put Ayla in my carry-on. Everytime I think about leaving her, I get a lump in my throat and tears start to sting my eyes. I KNOW she's going to be in the best of hands...THAT'S definitely not the issue. I'm just really going to miss her. :( Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for this trip...really, I am. Basking in the sun on a beautiful beach with a cold beer in my hand and Dean next to me. What could be better? (Well, if Ayla was on the other side of me...) It's just going to be hard to be away from her for that long. Is she going to forget who we are? [Sigh]