Cookie of Doom

(here's a little something I wrote from an experience... Happy New Year, all!)

It may have been chocolate chip, it may have been oatmeal raisin, but when I saw the great cookie, little did I understand the power that it would wield over the peace of my family. This cookie was the cookie of chaos, bringing with it the power of war, envy, coercion, strife and devilry.

The story started when, after a long day of driving in the car to random shopping locales, that let’s just say, was not my choice. Mom was getting the groceries, after the shopping market had been emptied by a wayward fire alarm. As consolation, the supermarket unleashed fist-sized cookies upon the patrons who waited for the fire department to turn off the annoying buzzer. So it was that our family did wait eagerly for mother to return.

The children were at peace. They had gotten to see a large fire truck come blazing with lights and sirens into the parking lot. They had been “evacuated” from a mock disaster, and had done so safely. We were all feeling grateful that nothing menacing had clouded the event, and this had been more excitement than the girl’s had had all day. So it was with relative peace and joy that they sat content to watch the flashing lights.

Then came mother. She gave the Cookie of Doom to one of the girls in the backseat. It was implied that the cookie would be shared, but alas, immediately howls sounded, for there was cookie, but the children strapped in the front two seats had no cookie. And why should this one who was sharing the cookie the one to share the cookie? So too did the sister sitting beside the cookie bearer protest and possibly resort to physical means to obtain the cookie for herself.

The wounded psyche’s cried out. What’s wrong with me that I have no cookie?

Sondra made the observation, “Before the cookie came, you were perfectly happy.”

So you, like me, are probably pondering the deeper lessons in all things…

If you consider the absurdity of this experience, you must be thinking, as I am, that my children are insane. And yet, it appears to me this cookie had the power to exert influence bent upon creating strife and conflict. For is not the very existence of a cookie to make people happy?

I ask. Is it normal that a thing that is supposed to make people happy to have the power to bring such conflict? The children were happy, until the cookie appeared. So if you introduce an item that is designed to increase happiness, the natural thought would be that the overall happiness ratio would increase, at least a little.

How often does this sort of thing happen in our own life? How often do we receive answers to our prayers, and find ourselves less happy with the solution? Or rather than being happy with a net increase, something a bit better, we are angry and embittered because it is not as good as our neighbor or our friend, or as we “might have done” had more miracles just kept pouring in.

I suppose nowhere is this perspective more plainly illustrated in a spiritual context, than in the Book of Mormon, where comparative envy caused the entire destruction of a nation. Who knows, it might’ve even all started with a simple cookie. How is it that we with our treasures and rare items cannot rejoice one with another for the gifts we each are given and try to make the most of the happiness we are blessed to receive? Why must we continually live by comparison, by so and so and her kids, or their husband, or that wife, getting such and such and not me?

I should lead a political campaign to ban all cookies—all sources of joy—so that we’re all equally content, or miserable. Or I suppose we could swallow our pride, so that cookie was sweeter, no matter the size, when we swallowed it. :)

--Ray