COOKIE MONSTER -- ALIVE AND WELL

It was at the celebration for the Snoopy loving priest with the 50th anniversary bash.  It was a rather simple walk around, glad handing thing, on the patio and in the hall with all kinds of beautifully prepared ethnic dishes for the surfeit of all. It was quite an aesthetic presentation with a lot of colors and a harmony of odors.  Curry, of course, from Delhi, pork from Viet Nam, soy sauce from the Philippines, fried egg-rolls from Indonesia and some kind of spice from China, longuiça from Portugal.  I walked around for at least 30 minutes just taking it all in and feeding my mind and concupiscent nose in this cornucopia of sensual stimulation.  Then I found two things that held my attention for the rest of the 2 hours that I was there.  Coffee and...

Yep, oatmeal, raisin cookies of at least six different sizes and hues, from deep brown to silky beige.  Tons of them.  Some soft, some hard, some just right and crunchy at the edge and soft in the middle.  This little boy of 7 1/5 [decades, not years] had died and gone to heaven.  I drank at least a gallon of coffee and not less than two dozen cookies.  It is something you dream about, but never something you get the joy of pulling off.  All the while I could see in my head, just behind my real live eyes, every single adult I ever knew as I was growing up scolding me and telling me that I didn't know how to live, that I was going to die from indigestion from the oatmeal or from diarrhea from the raisins.  I had all this going on in my head the while I was cruising around the floor chatting up just about anybody who seemed too bashful to read me the riot act.  I was just chomping up a storm and making sure that the Voice from the Kitchen was busy charming her way around the crowd about 25 paces away as I kept myself carefully protected from her stinging stare by a large pair of glutei maximi.

I pulled it off.  Waltzing around on cloud nine in oatmeal/raisin cookie heaven with a fresh cup of coffee in my other hand.  

I'm going to tell you another part of my total joy that fateful day.  I took a small cup of coffee and I would keep it half full.  Drink it while I was chomping a cookie or two and then go back for another half cup.  Listen, when you're up to your eyeballs in oatmeal/raisin cookies, you don't go around ruining the sensation by drinking lukewarm coffee.  You, maybe, but not me.  So there you have it.  I did something I never thought I would ever have the opportunity to do.  I ate cookies and drank coffee for nigh on to two hours and never once felt guilty or stupid.  In fact after that experience, you know that I'm going to die with a smile on my mug.  So don't you go and ruin the day by crying at my funeral.