The Cookie Caper
You just can’t trust anyone in this house.
by Monica Dutcher
It's dog eat dog when there's peanut-butter laced cookies in my parents' kitchen.
The adrenaline starts revving in us after they've been baking for a while, and that bakery aroma wafts through the house, arousing our olfactory receptors and sending the hypothalamus into a frenzy. At the sound of the oven timer, Mom and I nonchalantly flock to the kitchen counter, where my dad has placed a hot pan of ooey-gooeyness for cooling.
After dinner, we're ravenous for dessert even though we're not hungry. My mom, dad and I are practically foaming at the mouth as we grab and devour, our eyes pinned to the remaining circles on the plate. "Who will get the lion's share of this decadent dessert?" we each seem to wonder. Part guilty and mostly greedy, we all take another before covering the plate with foil, which will keep out any honest weight watcher. But unfortunately for the three of us, not one of us is ever honest in the fight for survival of the sweet tooth.
The next morning on the way out for church, we longingly look at the foiled plate as if it houses some culinary holy grail. "When I get back, the first thing I'm doing is having one of those cookies," we all think. I know we each made the same mental note because, sure enough, upon our return to the kitchen, we beeline for the counter. I snatch up the foil and am horrified at the bare plate before me.
"Who ate these cookies?" I bellow.
"You had the rest for breakfast," my mom accused.
"No I didn't! Dad did!"
"I did not have any cookies today. It was Mom."
"You two are the ones who eat sweets in the morning," she defends. "I never do that."
The interrogation circles for the next several minutes until I look down and see a pair of bulging Chihuahua eyes staring at me.
"Josey looks awfully fat" I say.
"Are you saying she ate them? How could she? She can't get up on the counter," my mother doubts.
"All she has to do is jump on the chair, then the table, then the counter."
There are crumbs in her bed; her mouth smells sweet and she's weighted like a brick: three smoking guns. We grumble at our shattered plans of indulging after church.
You just can't trust anyone in this house.
Email
Print
