In Which She Discusses Cookiegate

My Mom has never worn the "World's Greatest Baker" apron. A timer has never been her Best Friend Forever. Matter of fact, we, as kids didn't know that Toll House Cookies weren't these little dark brown nuggets that crunched like pretzels and came out of a tube. We didn't have a huge Christmas cookie tradition. Not a big deal.

That is, until I got wind of Mom's Big Cookie Swap.

Mom has been a Catholic School teacher for almost thirty years. (Not too shabby for someone who's a coupla years from 6o, huh?) Her grade partner decided to organize a cookie swap where she'd sign up to make a whole bunch of one type of cookie, and then swap them out with other teachers who'd do the same. Seems simple, right? Keep baking the same thing overandoverandover, then come away with a wondrous assortment of fabulous cookies.

This swap operates on the theory of human pride, and veiled competition: making your BEST stuff, and presenting it in such a way as to make other teachers' snickerdoodles look like meteors that fell to earth, burning up into little charred remains as they hit the atmosphere. Oh yeah. It's like that.

So. Knowing Mom's history, her tendency to multi task, her inability to stay off the phone or pass a Jerry Springer episode, I was a little, um, surprised when she explained how she had to make 16 dozen almond macaroons. That's right. 15 other people signed up for the swap.

Let's discuss, shall we? Not only has Mom jumped in with both feet, but she has also managed to decide on making the most unpredictable,temperamental, not to mention expensive cookie. ( 1 pound of pine nuts= $10. 1 can of almond paste= $5.89. The 12 cans needed to make 16 dozen cookies= Thai dinner with your favorite daughter.) They're the Mariah Carey of the cookie world.

I'm not even getting into the actual baking and decorating time. each cookie has to be in the oven until it's just the right color, then pulled out and topped with exactly three pine nuts, cooled and bagged for each person. Okay, I will tell you that it took her over eight hours in the course of three nights. She was real proud of her stuff, and went to school with 18 dozen beautifully made and bagged cookies.

When it was all over, I called to ask how the swap went. She told me she didn't want to discuss it right then. Uh-oh. That means something went wrong. I just didn't realize how wrong it could be.

When I finally found out what happened, I was completely gobsmacked. Like, totally at a loss for words. Mom didn't even get one cookie. Not a crumb. Not even the extra two dozen that she brought. She didn't even get the box in which she brought the cookies to school. What the Eff could've happened?

Now, this wasn't exactly a well-run operation. And there were extenuating circumstances in the form of a snow storm that shut down the school at 1 o'clock. But for real? Instead of everybody going to the same room at the same time and picking up one dozen of each cookie, it seems like it was a grab-fest with teachers trying to get out of school as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Mom was in the classroom watching their students, waiting for their buses to be called so the kids could be dismissed.

So when the students left, mom went down to the room, and it was completely empty. Like I told you before, not even the boxes were there. That's the worst part; somebody even grubbed the boxes. No return on Mom's investment. No fabulous assortment of wondrous cookies. Nothing.

Mom was pretty hurt, and she should be. But her main focus this whole time has been the butter creams that the Lunch Lady made. I'm saying, "Ma, you don't even like butter creams." But. They were put into half-pound confectioners' boxes, and tied up pretty with ribbons. There were 16 of them there. Which means that some teacher made off with two boxes. Her point is that while you might make the mistake of taking two of the same kind of cookie bag, you *know* when you have two boxes.

I don't know what to say here. In the Big Picture, there's a lot more important stuff going on, and it is just cookies. But what's that say about grown-ass women who are supposed to be professionals holding up the values of Catholic Schools? That there are always people who feel entitled to more, I guess.

So what happens now? The team player attitude has been broken, there are a lot of hard feelings on Mom's part, and I don't know what the best outcome to this would be.

I think today I will head over to 1-800-bakers and order up one of those big chocolate chip cookies the size of a pizza. You know, the kind that can be written on in icing. I'm having it delivered to Mom's classroom at school. I'm still debating what to have written on it. "Swap This" is my best option. But the classic "Bite Me" will always work.