A cookie is little more than a mass of flour, sugar, often vanilla, butter, and various other items lying around the kitchen that have been warmed in an oven until golden brown (or in some cases, a considerably darker brown). Despite the simplicity of these small bundles of health problems, some of us humans (and occasionally our pets) find ourselves uncontrollably attracted to them, resulting in those of us with greater restraint being beaten to the cookie jar by our hungrier counterparts and finding, when we finally get there, that there are no cookies left for us.
Every year around Christmas, this is the problem in my family. As a tradition, my mother devotes herself to baking so many "seasonal" cookies that we nearly run out of cookie tins to store them in. She makes several different styles of cookies, from traditional jam and chocolate filled German ones, to decorated sugar cookies, to new creations from online recipes she discovered five months ago but decided not to make until what she considered a more festive occasion. No matter what the cookie, my brother Linus devours them all. From his usual unresponsive position behind his laptop screen and between his extra-loud headphones, he will mysteriously arise and follow his nose to wherever it senses the strongest aroma of freshly baked sweets. Often while they are still piping-hot, he will begin to almost passively consume large quantities of the sugary treats.
An hour or so later, I will be wandering through the kitchen in search of a quick snack, and, on the table, I will find two cooling racks, one with cookies and one already cleared. I casually pick one up, sniff it, take a bite, and smile as I savour the flavour that has begun to satisfy my sugar tooth. Meanwhile, Linus will reenter the room with his laptop and other necessities and sack out at the table to guard his hoard from any more of my thievery. His most common response when he sees that I am eating from his treasured stash is to show exaggerated emotion as he bites into the first cookie of his sitting in an attempt to deter me from eating his joy. Then, as I try to reach for one myself, he will surround the cookies with his arms, attempting to appear jovial while blocking me from the cookie rack. As I attempt to penetrate the blockade, his sinister intentions become apparent as he tells me to "Unhand my cookies!"
The pursuing argument lasts only a minute or two before he reluctantly agrees to relinquish a single cookie to me. As I leave, I give him an evil look to let him know, "this isn't over", but before I can return for round two, all the cookies are gone.
