When I set out on my journey, I wasn’t even thinking of cookie dough.
I was going to the Pharmacy to pick up a wide-toothed comb and some cotton pads. It was drizzling out, just barely, so I was wearing my yellow rain jacket and my Teva sandals, because I figured “Sure, wet feet are uncomfortable, but mildly wet feet are only mildly uncomfortable,” I went to the pharmacy and found that they didn’t have the wide-tooth comb or cotton pads, and it was only then that I decided to hike across town to the Dollar General.
You must understand that it is at this very early point in the story that I am signing up to walk across town, knowing full well that the sidewalks will disappear as I get further from Main Street and I will have to walk through the mud in my Tevas both there and back. All these thoughts are running through my head as I’m standing in the Pharmacy, but at a certain point, one’s desire to possess a wide-tooth comb and cotton pads outweighs their desire to keep their feet dry.
I didn’t decide that I needed cookie dough until I got to the Dollar General and realized that it might be a good time to get some food shopping done. I started walking around, picking out some cheesy pretzels and lime tortilla chips when the thought struck me “What if I got some of those little circle sugar cookies that have the seasonal stamps on them like pumpkins or ghosts?”
You know the ones I mean.
By the time the concept of these cookies even enters a person’s mind, there is a turning point. A moment when you realize there is no going back.
My new mission had almost nothing to do with the wide-toothed comb; my new mission was to get that cookie dough and to promptly return to Union where I would make the whole package and eat them all without any help.
Alas, there was no cookie dough to be found at the Dollar General.
Nothing. Not even a tub of Nestle Tollhouse dough. But I was not defeated yet. I formulated a new plan. I would simply skip the pretzels and the tortilla chips, purchase the cotton pads and the comb, then go across the road to the Harvester Market where surely there will be cookie dough and where I would also be able to do my food shopping.
However, when I went to the Harvester Market, with my basket already full of lime tortilla chips and pretzels and cans of soup, I realized that still there was absolutely no cookie dough to be found. Shamefully, I asked myself “Why am I even here, then, if there is no cookie dough,” and with a low hanging head I returned all my groceries to their shelves and exited the store without purchasing anything.
On my way back to the heart of town, I realized that I don’t even own a cookie sheet, so as far as my actual plan for baking the cookies is concerned, I am at a loss, but frankly, I didn’t care. I was driven by the intense craving to shove hot, melty sugar discs into my angry little mouth and have them disintegrate into liquid happiness of my tongue.
“Perhaps,” I thought “the Pharmacy will have some…” sure, they didn’t have any wide-tooth combs, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t have cookie dough. Then again, I couldn’t see why the Dollar General or the Harvester Market wouldn’t have cookie dough either.
For the second time in one day, I entered the pharmacy, and for the second time in one day, I was disappointed. There was only one place left to turn; College Convenience. My feet were muddy and brown, my soul worn and tattered from the rain and the walking and the lack of little, perfectly circular, precut sugar cookies with stamps on them, but I still had hope. I still believed CoCo’s would pull through.
And I was wrong.
CoCo’s, just like every place I checked, did not have any cookie dough in stock.
Now, not only do I not have cookie dough, but I also do not have lime-flavored tortilla chips or pretzels. I do, however, have a wide-tooth comb so, at the end of the day, I may not have gotten what I wanted…but I got what I needed, and that is all that really matters.
