The Cookie Jar
When I was a child, my grandmother would bake the most delicious-smelling cookies. Her house would be full of the aroma of those treats as they baked in her oven. She would remove them and place them on the various cooling wire stands as my siblings and me would stand and watch, eyes wide and mouths salivating. The flavours that she would make were so enticing. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, fudge chocolate, cinnamon, cranberry and orange and white chocolate. We were not allowed to eat them when they were warm, even though we knew from our mother’s cookies that they tasted sensational in this state. The selection of mouth-watering treats was placed inside a large cookie jar and placed on a shelf.
“Now, ” my grandmother would announce, ” cookies must be earned. Good behaviour will result in being given a cookie of your favourite flavour.”
“I like chocolate chip best of all,” my sister would declare.
“I prefer peanut butter,” my elder half- brother would announce.
“It’s got to be cinnamon for me,” weighed in my younger brother as he fizzed with excitement. I would stand saying nothing.
“What about you HG ? Which is your favourite?” asked my grandmother as she leant down to level with my face,
“I like them all grandma, I don’t have a favourite,” I would answer.
My grandmother would laugh.
“Oh you can’t have them all HG, you’ll be sick,” she would say and ruffle my hair.
“He will grandma, he is greedy,” my sister would scold and I would give her my look. I had perfected this stare in the mirror over the preceding summer. I narrowed my eyes and fixed my gaze summoning up every ounce of anger, malice and hatred that I could muster. I found it worked best if I thought of things which angered me. I would recall being left out of the school football team but for no apparent reason. I would remember when my painting did not win the competition organised by the church (“But you came second,” congratulated my younger brother, what’s the good of second?!) and every other injustice that had been meted out to me. I recalled the fury I felt from each act of exclusion and failure to recognise my talents and I channelled it into creating the cold, malicious stare. When I shot it towards my sister she immediately fell quiet. She knew better than to cross me once I had given her that look.
“Well,” my grandmother would continue as she straightened herself, “if you all help me clean the baking utensils you can all have a cookie each. I sneered as my siblings gathered around to assist so readily compliant for such a meagre reward. I turned and walked out of the room unwilling to engage in their collective submission.
“Don’t you want a cookie?” my grandmother would ask, her voice following me as I walked into the garden.
“No thank you,” I called over my shoulder and made my way to my favourite tree to climb high into its branches and sit in splendid isolation looking across the extensive garden which surrounded my grandparents’ impressive house. I would sit up there for hours, master of all I surveyed.
When I returned for dinner my siblings would remind me of how delicious the cookies had tasted yet I was unaffected by their ineffectual goading for I knew that my triumph would surpass their laughable achievement. I merely smiled and got on with eating my dinner.
That night I waited until the rest of the house was asleep and then I made my way downstairs, back into the kitchen. I stood on the cool stone floor, the moonlight shining into the room causing the glass jar to gleam. I hopped up onto one of the kitchen counters and claimed my prize. I placed the jar down before me and lifted off the lid before dipping my hand inside and selecting a white chocolate cookie. I devoured it in three bites. I grabbed a cinnamon one and wolfed that down before attacking a cranberry and orange cookie in much the same way. I pulled the chocolate chip, peanut butter and chocolate fudge flavoured ones and put them beside me, ready to carry to bed. My hand lingered over the jar again. How I wanted to take a further cinnamon cookie and break it up, scattering crumbs besides my younger brother’s bed but I knew that it was futile. My grandmother could never remember how many she had baked of each cookie and she would never notice that six had been taken overnight. That was the basis for my success. Therefore, there was no point in leading a trail to the bed of my younger brother, no matter how satisfying it would have been to have seen him accused and cry as he protested his innocence. I replaced the jar and scooped up my bounty ready to pad back to my bed and enjoy my stolen snacks and reflect on my skills. Even back then I knew what people’s weaknesses were and how best to exploit them.
20 thoughts on “The Cookie Jar”
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Hi H.G,
I have only just discovered your work in the last month. Wow! What an eye-opener, and a game-changer!
About this great story, it reminds me of the film ‘Les Quatre Cent Coups’. About a french boy who reacts normally with adults and gets into all kinds of trouble with them, and his friend who is devious and clever, takes care of himself under the circumstances and doesn’t get caught. I was taken to that film by an elderly man who I think was probably an ultra, who was trying to teach me to be less of an idiot.
My life has been full of Narcissists, but I didn’t know what they were, so to myself I labelled them psychopaths or hysterics (mother). I don’t know if you can be more than one thing as mother had hysterical paralysis, but my way to understand narcissist fuel and changing hystory and devaluation of father was just to think of her.
Anyway I used to regularly sneak downstairs at night to steal biscuits from the biscuit tin because I was hungry. I was very thin and small. Mother controlled all the food in the house and was in charge of every morsel that anyone put into their mouth and had something to say about it. Eating in secret was such a luxury. At easter, I used to creep downstairs (being careful to avoid the steps that creaked) and carefully get into the easter egg box, unwrap the foil, open up the 2 halves of the egg and steal a sweet from inside, then wrap it back up perfectly. I am in my sixties so in those days there was no plastic. My younger brother tried this trick and made such a hash of it that he was found out and punished.
I love this story, it really gets to me. I wish you had eaten the whole jar full. I remember trying to calculate how many I could get away with eating. I only ever dared take two.
Thanks, very much
P
Do you still eat cookies like this?
No
Glad to hear! I don’t either. But I have!
Carrot cake once in a while? 🙂
HG, I just read the article and some of the old comments when the article was posted previously. I trembled and cried whilst reading that you were abused as a young boy from another family member. Yesterday , without knowing the fact, I replied to another reader that just because you are an Elite, doesn’t make you a bad person by default and inserted a link how different brains operates in terms of brain development – I have some medical background so I was really interested to read it. But this is not the point.
The point is , Master , that now I am ever more fascinated with your work and despite that I don’t know you the real H.G. is , hats off , Sir for your work! Yes , you became a Narc but you had no other choice and in order to survive, the empathy traits that every child has, had to be shuttled down.
I have my own share being molested by strangers and coaches during my childhood and adolescence and 2 unsuccessful rape attempts by strangers as an adult. But I didn’t have the courage to share with anybody except on this blog when I can remain anonymous .
Now I can even respect you more than ever that you are helping people through your work . You were a victim yet as a grown adult you have the strength, the courage to openly discuss and educate people about narcissism.
And now I completely understand your need for fuel and to assert control, the urge always to be on the top.
And even though your malignancy ( as you describe at your books and articles) , even though that I know only the virtual persona H.G. Tudor, i won’t change my opinion that you are an amazing Human! Not a devil , nor any other creature from the kingdom of darkness.
My soul and mind had betrayed me in the past ( not only in the romantic aspect in my life, we all had made stupid decisions ) but my intuition never failed me so far .
Thank you.
You are welcome. But I must thank you for something else as well -immersing at your world through this blog I am learning more the act of forgiveness. Through your educational , dare I say pioneering work, when you are sharing openly your own stories, I am learning more and more what trigger the narcissism , what is the catalyst that transforms one in a narcissist ( along with the genetical predisposition) . And I remembered yesterday( after writing my previous post) that my ex Mid Range has also being raised without love, the physiological terror he had experience at the age of 3 from his own father and I realised that now I am able to forgive him, not fully yet . This is not my ET, there is no way I would go back to him!
And there is no excuse for any harm , malice, manipulation, emotional abuse that he exercised upon me. Nor I can condone any other narcissist behaviour .
But I would be the biggest fool and certainly not better that anyone of your kind if I paint all narcs with the same brush! Thus , my admiration for your work and my forgiveness toward my ex .
The other Narc, the Millennial spoilt brat – well, only my total indifference is applicable .
So with this long post I just wanted to express my gratitude that you showed me the path for forgiveness. Looks like a paradox – an Elite Narcs helping an empathic person to find inner peace, doesn’t it .
But is a win/ win ( yes, I am plagiarised your words).
As we all know your exceptional ability to use the words, I trust that my plagiarism being excused 🙂
Thank you again, Master.
This is one of my favorites because it illustrates so much of your traits as a child and the difference in your perception of things to that of how your empath siblings saw the same thing. You were offended and they weren’t at all. You were enraged and they were happy and thought nothing of it.
My brother would do things like this one Easter he stole some chocolate when my mother questioned us she said that everyone would get a hiding of the person didn’t own up we all got a beating then my brother came to me and my younger brother trying to convince us it was the other one I had experience getting the blame for things he had done many times by now I would always say wasn’t me because I was afraid of what my mother would do to me and he took advantage of the moment by saying that I was acting guilty he got away with so much and I got In trouble and punished in many cruel ways
Hi Veronique, I just want to say how much I admire you for surviving all of that in your family and growing up to be a strong and empathic person. It’s extremely difficult to be born in a family that forces you to crawl instead of teaching or helping you fly. I am happy that you are now free of that and are now in charge of your life.
Dearest HG. All those delicious flavours and only pick ONE??! You HAD to take matters into your own hands! I hope those cookies were delicious, HG 🙌 Good work!
Thank you.
THE STORY WAS INTERESTING. REMINDED OF MY YOUNGER BROTHER. I NOTICED THESE TRAITS WITHIN HIM AT 4 YEARS OLD .EVERYTHING WAS FOR HIM ALWAYS ,OUT F- – – – – EVERYONE ALL HIS LIFE . NO WAY TO LIVE . IM THE OPPOSITE I HAVE ALWAYS .GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY ., SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD. STILL DO . NOWI UNDERSTAND WHY THANKS H. G. 🆓👄
I like this story. Insight into little HG perfecting his craft. It looks as though Good Ol’ Grandma had her turn at control and manipulation as well! What kind of cruel woman wouldn’t let her grandchildren have warm cookies after smelling them baking all afternoon?!?
Agreed! I thought that was so mean! Maybe Grandma was a narc too? I kind of want those recipes though, they sound really good.
Kaydiva3, I see a couple of red flags there with Grandma. Maybe HG will write more about her in the future.
A lot of people think you should be controlling towards children just for the sake of it.
Whitney, I know. The “children should be seen and not heard” notion is prevalent in the generation of HGs Grandmother. It was that way when I was a child too. I didn’t have a voice and that has affected me considerably.
I look at children as the embodiment of free spirit, curiosity, and living in the moment. My children taught me just as much or more than I taught them.
I’m sorry you didn’t have a voice as a child MB.
Children are the most loving too. And they have such wisdom it’s scary! You learn so much from them.