“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
Month: December 2019
Sneaking Christmas Cookies
I wouldn’t say that I’m quite fat, perhaps “rotund” would be a kinder word. I’m sure there are many disadvantages of being in such shape, but the most troublesome one is that I have a wife who sternly watches my ingestion of sweets. This is a particular serious problem at Christmas time.
Mind you, that this is a season when she bakes 12 dozen Christmas cookies, and I am exposed to the aromas of chocolate, vanilla, and spices throughout our home all day long. And I’m expected to exercise some self-control? Because of this, I have become somewhat an expert on sneaking Christmas cookies. I assure you it is purely out of desperation.
The first thing one has to do, and understand clearly, is that you have to act disinterested. While your wife is baking, do something constructive like reading the comics, checking out the latest sports scores, or moving things around in the garage like you’re actually doing some organizing. But whatever you do, act as though you don’t notice the tantalizing fragrance of her baked delicacies. This gives your wife the false confidence that her cookies are safe.
The second thing you need to know is the hardest part. This is where the real discipline of Christmas cookie sneaking comes in. You have to wait until your wife leaves the kitchen and goes to take her shower. Now, you can strike. If your wife hasn’t already hid them in the washing machine, beneath the sink, or in her car trunk, they can usually be found in a round cookie tin in the kitchen somewhere. This is why you have to strike fast, before she can hide the cookies after they’ve cooled.
Now comes the sneaky part. You have to make sure that she doesn’t notice that any cookies are missing. This involves taking a cookie out of the cookie tin, then rearranging the cookies evenly so that she doesn’t notice that a cookie is missing. Unfortunately, this only works for the first six or eight cookies you take.I have tried putting a stack of napkins underneath the cookies in the tin to make it look like there are the same number, but that doesn’t work very well unless the napkins are the same color as the cookies.
The final part involves hiding the evidence. You have to disguise the cookie crumbs. Only eat brown cookies over a wood floor, or white sugar cookies over a light thick carpet. That way the crumbs are harder to see. The cookies with sprinkles are the hardest to disguise, so sometimes I have to go outdoors to eat those. Whatever you do, don’t eat them over a tablecloth because she’ll notice the crumbs right away, and she’ll make you clean them up after she scolds you. Another way to hide your evidence is to eat the cookies over the kitchen sink. But you have to be sure to wash the crumbs down the disposal or she’ll notice those, too.
Nighttime cookie sneaking is a whole topic in itself. If your wife has excellent hearing, like mine does, she will inevitably hear you rummaging around in the kitchen in the middle of the night trying to open the cookie tin or opening the refrigerator door to get some milk. The solution is that you have to keep a cookie stash somewhere else in the house. This is probably best done in the bathroom where you can fake that you have to go to the bathroom, and instead have a couple of cookies that you’ve previously hidden. But don’t forget to wash the crumbs down the sink!