The Life of a Cookie

Image from meals.com

Contrary to liberal propaganda, the life of a cookie begins when all ingredients are first mixed together. If we are to measure by kitchen scales, it begins precisely at the moment when the chocolate chips first rain down from heaven, giving the cookie its raison d'etre.

Chocolate consciousness ekes in, giving life to what was a rather dull mass of Crisco, sugars, baking soda, flour, salt, and almond extract. The spirit of the cookie is at this time one and varied, a collective consciousness, if you will, a Lacanian hum that varies between the I and the We.

They/It is aware of the red smooth sides of its roofless womb, the carrier that holds its unformed mass. Above them is the bleary face of Our Father, Who Art in the Kitchen. Their Father is hungover, a credit to all creators who continue to make and bake in the face of unspeakable obstacles, namely, the desire to still be in bed.

"Bakers gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake," says Prophet T. Swift.

Their Father lifts them from their cool red womb/bowl, giving them a glimpse of a Kitchen littered with torn-open goodie bags from something called "The Black Cat Ball," in order to wrap them in a plastic shroud, to rest for hours in an enclosed tomb, one that is cool and sparse. If this time were represented by the tarot, it would be the time of the Four of Swords. On one side of them is a shriveled half of a tangerine, crying for its lost youth, and on the other a circular container of Gorgonzola, proud in its rapid and frequent use.

Time passes. Hours for humans is a lifetime for cookie dough, which awaits the sweet culmination of their life in the hot mouth of a Superior Being.

And then their tomb opens, and a different Father lifts them from their shelf. Unwrapping their plastic shroud, he refers to a script scrawled on the back of an envelope, left for him by the Original Father. Second Father separates the I/We mass, giving individual life to the cookies, and places them in the Oven of Formation, where they will grow into the shape meant for them by Almighty and Longer-Living Father.

It is whence they emerge from the Oven of Formation that their individual lives begin, the ones that set them aside from all cookies before them. They are placed in a wicker basket and covered with a towel.

"I wish you had told me earlier you weren't coming," booms the voice of their Original Father to their Second Father, who sits at the table.

"I'm sorry, baby. Have a good time," thunders the second voice. And then, with a terrific clatter, the door is opened and the cookies feel a blast of cool air from the World Beyond.

It has started! What a joy, to be feeling the air and on their way to their Final Culmulation!

They swing in their basket down the stairs, down to the basement, and balance in the air in what can only be described as a stunning feat of balance and skill as Their Father pedals down the dark city streets, singing to himself.

Their journey is punctuated by the puh-dunk, puh-dunk of first one, then the other wheel as it jostles over raised portions of the road. The cookies know this by intuition, and because they are more intelligent than the haughtier cakes and pies believe. The cookies and their creator are lulled into a feeling of safety, and perhaps that is why they didn't sufficiently prepare for the rough speed-bump that surprised them when they were ever-so-close to the party.

"Whee!" some of the cookies--a third? half?--cried as they were thrown (leapt?) from under the towel and over the lip of the basket. The plunge was thrilling--scary but titillating to their chocolate nibs. And then there was the pavement, rushing up to them, and for just a second--one long, terrible second, they realized that it was not their fate to meet their end crumbled in the hot mouth of a Superior.

Meanwhile, their creator and fellow cookies had skidded to a stop by the curb. The towel was quickly thrown back and stock taken of the remaining troops. Shaken and some of them broken, they huddled together to make themselves appear larger, like a frightened animal.

"Damnit," growled their creator, as he looked back at the fallen ranks, considering. But he shook his head and continued forward, bravely, and considerably more carefully this time.

The cookies and their creator arrived at the party, where they were promptly separated. The cookies tingled with excitement. With the loss of many of their comrades, they felt all the more special for having made it, and looked forward eagerly to their fate. Unfortunately, many of them were set aside in the kitchen, while only a chosen few settled on a gorgeous spread to join perfectly formed store-bought Swedish cookies on a platter.

"They'll be waiting here a little longer than we, don't cha know," said one Rosenmunnar to another (it turned out they were more Minnesotan than Swedish).

However, there's something eternally attractive about a chocolate chip cookie, though. If they took the Enneagram, they'd be a two: a people-pleaser. And so one by one, they reached their sweet end in the hot mouth of an intoxicated gay man.