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.
44 thoughts on “The Cookie Jar”
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For once rhis would be an example where the calculating and calm traits of a psychopath are an advantage.
However, it hardly matters now, what Putin is, though he didn’t give in to provocation after provocation from NATO. (Really time I’d move to a place not part of fhat).
Just a few facts…. this is about the financial system, resources and lies & warfare from “the west”.
Germany and other. usial players delivered weapons etc to both Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine had been used for a long time for strategic moves from US and NATO, and for military operations, such bio weapon development, and other things.
Currently strategic points on the Ukraine were also attacked and destroyed feom within and with weapons from “the west”. Hospital and victim pictures were at least in part PR.
Ukraine is one of THE home places of the financial system (west), Khazaria. This is a very very old conflict. In addition to recent history, and Russia does have a point reg. recenr history, too.
West anything but innocent and something had to be done to expose and to fight back.
So much misinformation and all news but western mainstream censored here. (Europe).
Russia and Belarus have been few countries resisting WEF and world bank, this is the result.
War fought directly by finance now by west and I am loving the Russian response to that. (Though we will be impacted ourselves).
I don’t agree with nato, eu, us, etc. at all.
NATO & Co. were provoking military escalation for many years now.
In addition, also war over various resources, same as Iraq etc. etc.
I left the center of Europe years ago because that was clear.
More scared that China will join.
How would the Chinese and Korean “leaders” be classified, btw, do they get their own class?
Biden’s and Kamalas response embarrassing.
Btw Hunter Biden would be more interesting subject, and he was invested with millions in Ukraine operations as well as Russia and China.
The conflict. and official rwsponse is not reality, what’s behind it is kept from the public we can only connect the dots.
I don’t think it’s correct to name Putin a megalomaniac, Fauci is one, and Zuckerberg, but not Putin as OMG he does have the power to destroy the world several times over, he is right to remind certain groups of people who are at war against all of us, of that.
And I am grateful for his uncovering of US dealings in Ukraine with their military and bioweapons, too, like it’s not enough that USA is storing nuclear weapons, drones and jets in Germany, thanks for putting us all in danger.
And, I just learned “cookie jarring” is a new dating expression which is basically another way of shelving.
“I sneered as my siblings gathered around to assist so readily compliant for such a meagre reward.”
HG,
I’m interested in your refusal of the reward here.
1a) Was it that a single cookie was not a great enough reward for the effort expended in cleaning the cooking utensils with your siblings? (If there had been a 5 cookie reward would you have cleaned the utensils?)
Or,
1b) Was it that by agreeing to clean the cooking utensils with your siblings, you would be compliant, essentially signalling to your grandmother you were under control. In this case no number of cookies reward would be worth relinquishing control.
2. If your grandmother had offered you the job of ensuring that no cookies were taken from the jar and, if this was found to be the case you could choose the activity for the following day, do you think you would have taken this offer?
1b.
Possibly.
HG, could you please tell us the story of the Russian psychopath who decided to fuck the world order as we are struggling to get out of a pandemic?
SP, I’d wondered whether the ‘timing’ of the invasion was partly just as the world are covid-weary and while the world was still ‘vulnerable’ to a degree? I may be wrong yet it would not surprise me.
I don’t know, AE. But it definitely was very inopportune -not that war is ever opportune-. I wake up every morning thinking of the fragility of our lives and the mirage any idea of stability is. I think of the poor people of Ukraine who, a couple of weeks ago, were carrying on with their normal lives. As if life weren’t difficult enough already!
SP, yes, I think the fact despite people knew what VP was like, it was still rather sudden. I am more or less similar with your line of thinking here. The pandemic was bad enough but ‘this’ adds a new ‘dimension’ to the “fragility of our lives” and it does rather put things into perspective. Why the what is happening in Ukraine has such an impact is that they, as you say, were living ‘normal’ lives, such a ‘quiet’ people in unjustifiable (inopportune). Thank you for sharing your sentiments 🙂
I think it was very opportune – for Putin – when the world is just pulling itself out of a crippling pandemic, and the ripple effect of that. Best time to strike, from his perspective.
I have had narcissists, in my own life, pull similar moves…
in the midst of me attempting to recover from financial duress, loss of home, loss of job and community, stressful legal action and attempting to provide stability for my son, they simply go and pull the rug out from under me in a different way. It looks crazy – but from their perspective, it is not crazy.
WhoCares, in my view, he ‘plans’ things. I did wonder if there is also an element of ‘The Ageing Narcissist’ driving him too. I’d looked at the expression of his face, it was interesting for me to be reminded of Joe Biden’s face (when that guy is not smiling).
RE: your second paragraph, it is despicable when you list the behaviours together and draws a larger picture. This is a typical example as to why people may suggest that it them planning / calculating it all when they are acting on their instincts. Black and white thinking.
Hahaha – right on time Asp Emp…school narcs (phone call) stirring up shit (for my son and, therefore, for me), just before lead up to another court date. Beautiful.
WhoCares, lovely-jubbly 🙂 Once you get to ‘know’ their patterns of behaviour, sometimes, you can actually be / get one step ‘ahead’ of the – and that, in itself, is the beauty of the wisdom we are gaining here. Way to girl! I’ll be thinking about you RE: court date, all the best for that 🙂 x
Asp Emp,
Ahead of them? Yes, sometimes. I did anticipate something like this particular phone call (just not at this time, haha!)… fortunately, I have had a preemptive phone call with my son’s teacher. (I had actually forecasted this possible scenario to her.)
Thank-you for the kind words, Asp Emp.
Asp Emp,
I think you may be on to something with regard to the ‘Ageing Narcissist’.
“WhoCares, in my view, he ‘plans’ things.”
I don’t know that I agree with your view that he plans or ‘plans’. But, I haven’t yet availed myself of the list that he’s on and the information about his school and cadre.
One thing I find interesting, is the view out there that while the entire world’s attention (understandably) is on his attacks on the Ukrainian people – there is suggestion that there are also simultaneous maneuvers happening to destabilize the Balkan countries. If that’s the case – it *could* be further evidence of Putin being a narcissist that engages in actual planning.
WhoCares, he turns 70 this year, note that is it a special number, I am just ‘saying’ if you can understand? Thank you for sharing your views, that’s perfectly alright with me 🙂 I thought to myself, if he has a majority psychopath ‘slice’ of the Dark Tetrad, maybe there would also be an element of ‘planning’. Yes, there would also be instinctive behaviours of the narcissism ‘slice’. So far, I have not really seen him smile, the ‘coldness’ is apparent. That is my guess 🙂 Good to read what you have to say, I am genuinely interested 🙂
Haha – SP, now HG’s wanting ALL the cookies when no one is looking makes sense!
WC, it will make even more sense when I tell you that according to Urban Dictionary, it can also mean something else regarding a woman’s genitals. Picture being caught with your hands in the cookie jar… 🤭
Haha!
I love this story.
Talk about a midnight snack. Was there any cookies that you didn’t like?
Of course. Any that looked at me in a funny manner.
Laughing.
You and your one-liners, HG 🙂
HG,
I really liked your childhood story. Tell me another one,please?
Once upon a time there was a narcissistic psychopath. Your end.
Oh, I didn’t even have time to light the bonfire. Lol
Perhaps HG will come back to tell more stories once the fire is lit … marshmellows?
Lickemtomorrow,
I have chocolate and Graham crackers lol Smores! Lol Now, what should I light on fire? Lol
OMG! Did I spell “marshmallows” wrong? Must have been feeling ‘mellow’ when I wrote it … maybe it’s the thought of a bonfire and stories by the fire making me feel that way <3
Haha, LET, I thought it was a British spelling! Funny!
AV, I spelled it phonetically in my head which sometimes doesn’t add up to the correct spelling 😛 Though, how you tell the difference between the ‘a’ sound and ‘e’ in this word is a mystery to me. The difference between UK and US spelling is interesting and the differences are subtle, but noticeable to anyone on the ‘opposite’ side. Much like some pronunciations.
When it comes to ‘marshmallows’, pretty sure it’s spelled the same in both places, but my fingers went to type with an ‘e’ there again! That’s part of the problem for me … my fingers work together with my thoughts and sometimes that can leave correct spellings out in the cold. I don’t rely on autocorrect, which probably gets me into trouble at times also!
Oh, I should undo my autocorrect if there’s a way! I would get myself into less trouble than it gets me, I’m checking into that!
My daughter has a white Persian named Marshmellow, because he is very mellow and also the color and look of his coat. She did it on purpose! 😃
AV, autocorrect, predictive txt, etc., are my nemesis. If I can’t turn them off, I just ignore them – obviously sometimes to my detriment! They can get people into trouble and cause confusion. Personally, I don’t want a machine to do my thinking for me, so perfection is not my aim and it’s obvious the ‘machine’ doesn’t always get it right either! No machine will second guess my thoughts, no way, no how. How lazy will we become as a society if we let machines do all the work/thinking for us? We won’t know how to spell – a machine will simply correct us if we are wrong; we won’t know how to drive – a self-driving car will become the norm; we won’t know how to type or write – we’ll just speak into a microphone and a machine will convey our thoughts in writing. It’s obvious how well that will go when you see some of the mistakes made on subtitles. Actors also need to speak more clearly so we don’t need to use subtitles to understand what they are saying, or are they going to rely on the option of subtitles so they lazily don’t have to continue to enunciate?
Let me move away from that tirade to say how adorable that your daughter has a cat she’s called “Marshmellow” and with a deliberately wrong spelling 🙂 It sounds like it suits him perfectly and I hope you will give him a pat for me … I feel better knowing there is a real ‘marshmellow’ out there somewhere <3 xox
LET, I got such a kick out of your tirade!! It made me laugh!! I will get that autocorrect undone tonight!! And thank you for saving my mind!!! 😃
I will give Marshmellow a pat for you. 🙂
Thanks, AV 🙂
Saving our minds is what we’re all about here 😉
Laughing……mersh-mellows sounds about right 😉
Haha, AspEmp, I like it 😉
LET,
Don’t feel bad, my autocorrect changes the whole word sometimes. Lol what about with humour and humor? both are correct,depending on where you’re from.
Rebecca, the UK version tends to keep the ‘u’ in words like ‘humour’, but the US version removes it. That’s a pretty common difference, but there are some words which if you want to double check the spelling on the internet will not always give you the version you want. Take the word “phoenetically” – that is the UK version. If you do an internet search you may well be served up the US version which leaves out the ‘e’ and wrongly assume that is the ‘correct’ spelling when it is one place, but not the other. There are quite a few of these words with the added ‘e’ in UK English also.
There are also different pronunciations and one of HG’s articles reminded me of this the other day where he mentions the word ‘scone’ and whether you pronounce it like ‘gone’ or ‘own’. Personally, I’m a ‘gone’ girl 😉 Then there’s ‘herbs’, which I would pronounce with the ‘h’, but US English would pronounce it without the ‘h’.
There are different names for things as well, such as ‘gas’ and ‘petrol’ which are the same, and costing a bloody fortune at the moment.
Everywhere!
LET, where does it say that you can spell ‘phonetically’ as ‘phoenetically’? I have been googling but cannot find this anywhere; I would be interested to know as I have never read it with the ‘e’ xx
JB, I sent you down a rabbit hole!
It’s the same rabbit hole I went down originally when double checking the spelling of this word.
WordPress corrected me the first time, but I could not rest. I was sure “phonetic” had an ‘e’, just like ‘phoenix’. Which is why I asked the question.
Looks like I’m the only one second guessing on this one. Sorry I made you do the same x
Ha ha, no problem LET! I just couldn’t fathom it; the amount of linguistics books I have read over the years, and I never once saw it written with the extra e..but still I doubted myself..story of my life! 😂 xx
Pahaha!
HG,
Will you tell us another one if I have a nice bonfire going? Maybe a Scooby-Doo snack? Lol Don’t throw me in for that one! Lol