Discriminating Cookie Monsters

Wedding #3 was two weekends ago which concludes this year's weddings for me.

THANK GOD.

I am ready for a break from all the formal social gathering where I have to gush during the vows, make small talk with people I haven't seen since high school, and try to figure out the enigmatic paradox of just HOW do you balance an appetizer plate and wine glass and actually manage to EAT the appetizers without sticking your face in the plate...while teetering in high heels (cute ones by the way).

If you're reading this and just about to drop an invitation in the mail to me, please ignore me. I'm a whiner. I will be more than happy to doll up in my little wedding outfit, gush, teeter, gab and somehow eat appetizers (although how I'm still not sure). And all the while I will do it without whining. Promise.

So wedding #3...

The husband, the BestFriend and I packed up and headed down to Carmel Friday evening for what turned out to be an entertaining 2 days of consuming copious amounts of wine, bacon, cheese, and biscuits. Why the interesting array of food you ask? Because when you go shopping at 11pm on a Friday night for light snack foods for the weekend (and after already imbibed one or two glasses of wine) you tend to shop like a stoner. But I will get to that little tidbit of a story another day.

Upon arriving in Carmel we shuffled off to the post rehearsal dinner schmooze-fest. The dainty affair was held at a delightful B&B a few blocks from downtown Carmel. I'm sure you can imagine how quaint and charming it was, including all the duck decoys, knick-knacks, and hand-made quilts to make Grandma proud. We schmoozed, drank wine, ate cookies.

Ohhhhhh the cookies...

The BestFriend brought these cookies to my attention. They were fluffy yet chewy, sweet and chocolatey, and there was drooly caramel tunneling through them. Ohhhhhh the nummy nummy cookies...

Naturally I had to make my way over to the source of these cookies, which were on the coffee table in front of a Laura Ashley print davenport. I use the word "davenport" because I'm sure, in a place like this, "sofa" or "couch" is just plain inappropriate. So, the husband, BestFriend, and I make our way over to the davenport and sit ourselves right down in a row in front of the basket of cookies.

We proceed to eye them carefully. We have to pick just the right one you see. Being that I'm not the sort to binge myself on large quantities of cookies I had to choose just the right one.

In other words, the largest one with the best ratio of chocolatey-o-liciousness and caramel-ly ooze.

Then the unthinkable happens...

Random person walks by and drops THIS bomb: "Oh, those cookies are SO good - you should try one. The oatmeal ones aren't as good as the chocolate chip ones though..."

Oatmeal? Did she say OATMEAL? I didn't see no fricken' oatmeal cookie intruders!

BestFriend and I look a little closer and realize that there are cookies in the basket that look distinctly like they have OATMEAL in them, intermingling with the chocolatey-o-licious ones. And they had raisins. RAISINS. I despise raisins in my cookies!

The audacity of WHOEVER put that basket together to just mix both types of cookies together, two types of cookies that look IDENTICAL. And with such abandon. Really, how cavalier!

So now there is risk involved - should I pick the WRONG (gasp) cookie, I would feel compelled to finish it not wanting to waste food. I wouldn't be able to feed it to the husband because of his whole take-me-to-the-emergency-room-now variety of lactose intolerance. I would have to eat it myself. I would not get to eat the chocolately-caramelo-y cookie because I HAD to skip going to the gym today and sat on my ass during my lunch break instead. Because the world sucks. Because life has it out for me. Because I like to worry myself about things like not eating more than one cookie instead of important adult stuff like paying the mortgage or not getting hit by a car.

But most importantly the BestFriend and I had two glasses of wine on empty stomachs and were having more fun being goofy and melodramatic about something so asinine.

So now we found ourselves trying to figure out which was which, and the husband just sat back and watched this whole bizarre debacle from behind his wine glass.

BestFriend: how about that one?

(pointing to what was SOOOO an oatmeal cookie)

Me: No, see the oats - I distinctly see oats.

BestFriend: This is unbelievable - fricken' unbelievable.

Me: I know, I know. But if we just focus, MABYE we can get through this.

BestFriend: It seems like those over there might be safe.

(pointing to a cluster of cookies)

Me: Hmmmm...maaaaaybe. Are you willing to risk it?

BestFriend: Not sure. HERE! This is one for sure!

(handing me what looks like neither one or the other)

Me: Are you sure? I mean, absolutely sure?

BestFriend: Yea.

(Notice I'm the guinea pig here?)

Me: It kind of looks like it could be oatmeal...

BestFriend: Nah, it's fine - go for it.

I take one bite. And wouldn't you know it? The gods have it in for me.

Me: It's OATMEAL!

BestFriend: Oh NO! That SUCKS! Here, try this one.

(She hands me another cookie)

Me: But what about this one?

(holding up the partially nibbled oatmeal cookie)

BestFriend: Get rid of it.

Me: What am I supposed to do with it? Stuff it down the couch cushions? (Before you think I'm a horrible house guest, and subsequently start checking your couch cushions for moldy food, keep in mind I said this mockingly)

BestFriend just looked at me, denying nor confirming my recent suggestion. I compromised and put the partially eaten cookie on a napkin on the coffee table, took the second cookie and bit into it.

Needless to say it apparently wasn't my night and the BestFriend SUCKS at picking the chocolate cookies from the oatmeal ones.

Cookie #2 goes on top of cookie #1 on the coffee table.

At this point some of you readers out there might be asking WHAT is WRONG with us. I offer you no excuses or explanations. All I can tell you is that we were two women, goofed up on some good wine with a mission to find a chocolate chip cookie in what seemed to be mostly oatmeal. And for those of you who know my BestFriend and I at all you'll know that once we set our minds to something we are determined to accomplish it. It may mean driving to 4 or 5 different stores, throwing out a batch of Baklava and starting fresh, or taking one bite out of 37 cookies before we find the one we want. But we will accomplish the set task.

By this point in time I have decided it is now up to me to pick the next cookie. And picked I did - and OHHHHHH was it good. And I picked one out for the BestFriend and she was happy. Apparently I have the cookie-picking talent. Some sort of chocolate-caramel radar most likely inherited from my dad.

And then the realization of what we had just done hit me. Two sad partially eaten cookies sat unloved, and undesired, on the coffee table. The waste! And what if someone were to see what we had done? And JUDGE us? If it were only one cookie someone passing by might think I merely did not like the confection. But two cookies with ONE bite taken out of EACH? Something needed to be done to cover up the evidence of our wreckless abandon.

BestFriend (apparently reading my mind): do something with them!

(she thrusts the cookies at me)

Me: What? What do I do? Oh my god - we can't just leave them here!

BestFriend: What about that couch cushions?

I should interject here to point out that we were giggling this whole time and none of the suggestions we made were meant seriously. At least I hope so. Who really knows.

Me: We can't do that!

Husband: What about in here?

(pointing - I kid you not - at a knitting basket next to the couch)

BestFriend: Ooooh yea! That's a good place! Do it! Do it!

Me: I can't put them in there! Someone might SEE!

I would like to interject here as well that you might notice I'm more concerned about someone seeing me hide the cookies in a knitting basket than I am about the suggestion of stashing baked goods with someone's knitting.

I put the cookies back on the coffee table. And then a plan formed in my head that was both discreet and foolproof.

I took another napkin and, in all my suave-ness, casually threw it over the cookies on the table. Then I sat back and waited a few minutes while chatting with the Husband and BestFriend. Anybody watching me would surely loose interest and not in the slightest suspect that I was trying to dispose of two perfectly good, only partially chewed, cookies. THEN I nonchalantly leaned forward, scooped up the now disguised pile of cookies, wrapped them in the napkin a little more.

And shoved them at the Husband.

Husband: what do you want ME to do with these?

(honey, please forgive me for involving you in our crazy antics)

Me: go throw them in there...

(I point at a garbage can across the room)

Husband: sigh. you guys are nuts.

He went and threw them out, like the wonderful, loving, dedicated man I know he is. I'm sure he was pondering all the while just what he got himself into when he married me. All I can say is HE proposed to ME - he got himself into this willingly.

Crisis was over! We had succeeded!

At what I'm not exactly sure. A variety of things really. Proving we are crazy, that's certain.

And after all is said and done all I can say is that I wish I had been someone else in the room witnessing this whole scenario - I'm sure we were hilarious to watch.