They are low fat peanut butter cookies with chocolate and chocolate peanut butter frosting. I'm no baker but I'll admit they're pretty good. But this post isn't about those cookies. It's about some cookies I never got.The college I went to had a parents weekend about 6 or 8 weeks into the first semester and all freshman students parents were encouraged to come so that they could check on their children and make sure their kids were in the swing of things. My parents could not attend, and you'll find out why later in this post, so I pretty much dreaded parents weekend. I had made a few friends pretty quickly and at the big parents weekend lunch on Saturday I decided to sit with my friend Gene and his family in the cafeteria. I chose them because Gene's sister was incredibly hot and I figured I'd make it through the festivities by ogling her as I ate.
So there I was eating alongside Gene and his family and then his mother turned to me and she asked me the question I had been dreading, "So, where are your parents? Why aren't they here?" I looked down at my tray of food and I sighed heavily. Then I looked over at Gene's mom and I said, "My parents didn't come because they're both dead." I sighed heavily once more and I began to eat again.
I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the color drain from her face and a uncomfortable silence hung over the table for a few seconds until she asked me, "Do you like cookies?"
"Sure," I replied.
"Well, I'll make you some when we get home and I'll send them to you. Would you like that?" She gave me a motherly smile.
I smiled right back at her. "Sure, that'd be great."
Too bad she never kept her word. I never got any cookies and that was the last time she ever spoke to me. Ah well, I guess some people don't like uncomfortable answers to their questions but that's the way the cookies crumbles sometimes.
24 comments:
Oh! That rude lady! Her cookies were probably dry and crumbly anyway.
OK, so now I'll send you some really GOOD cookies loaded with cholesterol soaking oatmeal AND the swag that was returned in the mail. Looks like I've got a busy weekend.
My parents are gone too and I share your pain. I had them another 10 years after college so that helped. Damn, Dr. Monkey - that sucks!!!!
Holy Cow, Monkey!
I can't believe that story.
I'm sorry.
Oh, that's terrible! She could have just told you that she was sorry for your loss (and so am I), but don't offer to send cookies and not follow through. Sheesh. Yours look delicious btw.
Dr. Monkey, I'm sorry for your loss. And yes, it was made worse by that woman "pretending" to be motherly. People are just so terribly flawed.
So as adults, we have to find a way to come to terms with our losses, heal, and make our own cookies. They look delish.
How awful!
In college, my hometown was about 45 minutes away from where I went to school and for Thanksgiving and Easter, I'd always bring friends home with me who couldn't afford to fly home for a couple days.
Even though I was on a ton of financial aid because my family didn't have much money, my mom always managed to find one more place at the table.
I never thought much of that until a few weeks ago when I found a letter my mom had written (but not sent) to a girlfriend of mine a couple of years after we graduated thanking her for always joining us for Thanksgiving and/or Easter. I was touched (and a bit sad) because she said that if it hadn't been for me calling and saying I was bringing friends home, we would have skipped the holiday altogether. But because my friend joined us all those years, we celebrated the holidays and they were filled with joy and fun.
I'm really sorry your experience wasn't the same. College is tough enough without feeling like you're all alone. I think people don't realize just how much those seemingly inconsequential things (like forgetting to bake some cookies and I'm going to believe she forgot) are a huge deal sometimes and stick with us for the rest of our lives.
Maybe she died before she could make them. You'd better investigate.
THAT IS HORRIBLE! If I were that mommy I would have made you cookies once a month and sent them to you! At least rice krispie treats, which are easy and fast to make - and most people love more than cookies. hmpf.
Some people are such idiots.
A friend of my roommates' was over recently for a movie night and apparently one of his favorite phrases is "your mom." (Yeah, this is a 30 year-old man. Mature.) He says it even when it really doesn't fit with what you're saying. So, I was tempted to announce loudly that my mom was dead and that maybe he should adopt a new catch phrase, but I decided to let it go instead. It would have been less about me being offended (because I really wasn't) and more about making him look like an ass, which he is, but then I thought that maybe I'd be an ass too if I purposely called him out as an ass. Confusing?
One of my favorite things is in "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." The main character's mother is dead and he fantasizes about saying inappropriate things to people who say they're "sorry" when they find out. So, he had this imagined conversation with a woman who said "I'm sorry" when finding out about his mom, and he said, "It's okay, it's not your fault... Or is it??" Oh man, that cracks me up.
In college you should be baking your own cookies/ brownies.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
What an untrustworthy bitch! You should've beaten up Gene to get him back for his mom's assholery.
Or not. Just sayin'.
Oh, I am so sad on your behalf! I can only imagine that this woman (unless she is a total moron) just couldn't bear to think about your situation (maybe it brought up her own issues, not that it's an excuse) and she had to block the offer out of her mind. And yet, it's unconscionable. I really hope you feel you have lots of family around you now - maybe not parents, but people who care about you just as much.
ain't that the truth. if you don't want to hear the answer then don't ask the question.
It's funny when some people are embarrassingly tactless, they take it out on the person who made it obvious to everyone in the room. I suspect that's why she never talked to you again.
By the way, I liked your cookies, even if June has " a thing about frosting on cookies".
Please don't tell me you lost both parents at the same time!!!
That's so sad. And, that woman is an asshole for promising what she never intended to deliver!
You should've beaten up Gene to get him back for his mom's assholery.
Or at least fucked his sister. 8)
Why did she talk to you like you were 7?
Did my nephew put you up to this?
She just saw you ogling her daughter and decided against mailing the cookies once she found out Gene's sister's Dad had laced them with arsenic. Shouldn't have been so obvious with the sister lust, MM.
As a parent who has had a child die, I have discovered that mentioning that subject makes other people so intensely uncomfortable that I often avoid talking about it, not because of how I feel, but because of other people's responses. Is that backwards, or what? I'm the one whose kid died, and I have to take care of their feelings? I suspect there was a similar situation with your friend's mother and the cookies. She was probably so distressed by the fact that she was being confronted with real loss and didn't know how to respond, that she would say just about anything to change the subject, whether she meant it or not. Messed up, but very real.
Hmm... Did you say something about cookies?
I can't believe that See You Next Tuesday never sent you any cookies. The nerve.
stuff like that sticks in your mind doesnt it? i will give my mother some credit -- i had a friend who's dad died in college --- she came to the wake and she never met either my friend or his dad....
but she said she wanted to be supportive.
my mom is a lot of things - but one thing she is, she remembers and cares
i am sorry this lady was so rude --- she probably meant well but you caught her off guard and she said that to make herself feel comfortable
I guess that shows what kind of person I am. As I read this, I was thinking you were making a run at her previously mentioned hot daughter, like the gang from Animal House showing up at the women's college to pick up the "date" who had died in a kiln accident.
Unless the "cookies" were a metaphor, and then I was right on target.
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