Bill's Musings

   

     He lies there, utterly defeated, totally spent, and genuinely disturbed. After all this time, all this effort, to throw in the towel now was really the only choice he had. ‘He gave it the old college try!’ came to mind. ‘Put the nose to the grindstone!’ was another one. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going!’, yet another apt aphorism for this particular situation. And yet, there was no satisfaction for him. There was no victory dance. Nobody cheered a defeat.

     Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the cookies back into the cookie bag.

     Damned cookies. We all have weaknesses in life. Mine happens to be Golden Oreos. I imagine myself at a meeting, probably in a church basement or something, sitting in a circle with a bunch of strangers. We’d all be fidgeting, eyes rarely meeting, wiping sweat from our brows. Finally, legs shaking, lips trembling, I would stand, alone, and say ‘Hello. My name is Bill, and I have a problem.’ Well, maybe I’d change my name to ‘Tim’ or something to protect the innocent, of course. And my problem is Golden Oreos.

     I’m not sure how it all started, to be honest. Cookies were never really my thing. Oh, sure, I’d indulge from time to time. A chocolate chip here, a shortbread there. I’d even enjoy a regular Oreo from time to time. Nothing out of the ordinary, mind you. And then, the Golden Oreo showed up. It arrived in our house more by mistake, I think. ‘An Oreo is an Oreo!’ Anne said when we questioned the fact that the Oreo cookies she bought in that week’s groceries looked a little ‘pale’. In fact, they sat for a few days, unloved, not opened. Then, like little Ferrets sniffing out something to eat, my son and I went foraging one Saturday night.  All that was left was this undisturbed bag of cookies.

      The rest, as they say, is history.

      Since that night, when we do buy them, they’re lucky to make it into the house without suffering some severe depopulation beforehand. And so, my wife, knowing their irresistibility, bought me a new pack…they are reduced-fat Golden Oreos, in a revolutionary package. Designed to use less materials, this cookie pack is as different as they come. And, as they sat on the counter, a plan formed in my head, a plan so devious, so brilliant, that in the end, nobody would know that cookies had been removed.

     Donning my skin-tight Lycra suit, infrared glasses, and suction-cup shoes and gloves, I made my way to the kitchen when Anne was asleep. Having defeated the laser alarm system, gotten past the razor-wire, and over the alligator-filled moat, I finally faced the ravenous Chihuahua. He was about to start yapping, so I did the only thing I could do: I threw him into the moat to the alligators. Now, suspended above the cookies upside down by a cable, I slowly allowed myself to be lowered to the payload. But here is where I ran into trouble.

     The new packaging they use for these cookies makes it quite easy to open and take out the cookies. The hard part, actually the impossible part, is to put the cookie tray back into the bag. There was simply no way to get them back in. I now had to face the fact that, if I couldn’t get the package back together, the evidence would suggest that I had opened the bag, and eaten some Golden Oreos. (By ‘some’ I actually mean ‘most’, but who’s counting?)

     Our kitchen is located directly below our bedroom, and I swear to you that Anne, although having one ear that is only at 10% capacity, has hearing so sharp she can hear an ant fart. That’s pretty sharp. As I pushed and prodded the cookie tray, making a racket that would wake the dead, I came up with a plan. I’d blame my son!

     I swung out of my harness. I climbed over the alligator-infested moat. Funny, but there were no more alligators. I leapt over the razor wire. I defeated the laser alarm. And now, I still had to get past the ravenous Chihuahua, who was marginally less ravenous, which would explain the absence of the alligators. I got past the Chihuahua, who at this point was chewing on my skin-tight Lycra suit, having snapped it off me, leaving me a little naked. ( A ‘little naked’ is kind of like being a ‘little pregnant’. Just trying to be honest.)

    So, we all know this really didn’t happen. The cookie thing happened, the bag really did malfunction, and I was pretty panicked about getting caught. But the Chihuahua thing, well…So I made my way, quietly, back up the stairs, carefully avoiding all the spots that make noise.

    Anne, of course, had heard everything. It ends up the package has an ‘Easy-Open’ tab on the front, which I had failed to notice. And so Golden Oreos are no longer on the menu.