The Last Cookie

When we were kids, we had cookies and pretzels around the house a lot.

My mom had a thing for cookies, usually chocolate chip, the toll house kind. And my dad had a thing for pretzels, the skinny stick kind.



Sometimes after I was supposed to be in bed, I'd come out to the living room after a bad dream or something and there they'd be. Sitting on the couch, watching Barney Miller. Him with his beer and his bowl of pretzels and her with her cookies, slowly munching around the chocolate chips.

And Ralph, our dog, laying in wait.

But us three kids, we could have cared less about the pretzels back then.



Although, sometimes, I'd hang out with my dad while he was working on one of the cars and eat his pretzels with him, while he explained how the carburetor worked. I'd suck all the salt off each one and place them - wet, de-salted and soggy back into the bowl and wait for him to reach in and grab one and get pissed.

But really, I would have rather eaten the cookies.

The cookies had their own place on the counter in a cookie jar. It lived on the counter in clear view. It wasn't hidden in the food cupboard or on top of the refrigerator or up near the cereal boxes. It was near the sink, right there, near the bread dough mixer thing for all of us to see.

A pottery jar labeled "cookies". With cookies in it. And a lid.

And knowing that the cookies were in high demand, my mom really only had one rule. No one was allowed to eat the last cookie, ever.

Never, ever, ever.



And while we were little, it worked. It was the law of the land. We would sneak a few here and there. Quietly climb onto the counter and very carefully take the lid off and put the hand in and grab a few.

If you got there and there was only one left, you knew not to take it. It was your mom's cookie.

And you'd curse to yourself and put the lid back on, and quietly move on. You'd try the larger cupboard and find the unsweetened chocolate used for baking and take a bite of it, hoping that it really was a dream come true and that there really was a giant bar of chocolate sitting in plain view in the cupboard just for you. But then you'd bite into it and it would be bitter.

And so you'd leave the kitchen frustrated and mumbling to yourself about how there was never anything good to eat in the house.

But as you got bigger, once in a while you'd get desperate enough to make the decision to eat the last cookie. Because, sometimes it would take days for your mom to get to eating it. And you could never understand how she could let one cookie sit for so many days at a time without it getting eaten.

So you'd say fuck the goddamn cookie and you'd eat it. And it was usually while you were still sitting on the counter, with the lid in your hand.

And then, sure enough, you'd be up in your room dressing Ralph up in shorts and a tank top and trying to get your mickey mouse ears to stay on with the rubber band and you'd hear your mom yelling...



...at your little sister.

And you'd hear your little sister crying. And she'd be whining about how she didn't do it.

And you'd just turn your music up louder and pretend not to hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, knowing. All because of that dumb cookie.

And she'd throw open the door and look around and say Oh, for christ's sakes! When was the last time you cleaned this room! And then Ralph would run out.

Which leads me to earlier tonight at Lulu's end of the season soccer dinner party. There was cake and brownies after dinner and after a little while there were some brownies left. And so I had a few. And then I came back to the food table later on after a conversation and saw that there was one brownie left. And I just couldn't get myself to take it, even though I wanted it.

And I looked at it for a few minutes too long and thought to myself never, ever take the last brownie.