Sometimes a Cookie Is More Than a Cookie

After I ate lunch last Saturday, while my wife was on the phone in the basement, I had a hankering for something sweet and I remembered that last week there was some kind of half-eaten chocolatey cookie thing in her lunch cooler-- I had sampled it and it was pretty good-- and I checked her bag and it was still there and I didn't want to interrupt her phone call (and I was hungry) so I ate it (pretty much inhaled it) and then I took a nap . . . and at some point during my nap, my wife woke me up and asked "Did you eat the cookie in my lunch bag?" and I confirmed this and she got pretty upset-- I wasn't sure why-- but I fell back to sleep . . . and when I woke up, she told me that this was a special cookie that her co-teacher had brought back from DisneyWorld for her-- that you had to wait a very long time at some gothic bakery named Gideon's Bakehouse and she had been eating a little bit of each day . . . and when she got off the phone, her plan was to relax and have some tea and eat the remainder of this special cookie-- everyone else in the house was napping and she was trying to not get angry when everyone else was relaxing when there was shit to get done, so she was going to try to relax herself but I had ruined it by selfishly eating her cookie-- I violated her personal space, went into her lunch cooler, didn't ask permission, and I had eaten all her potato chips the day before, etcetera . . . and so I apologized-- but qualified my apology by saying that if I had known how important this cookie was to her, I wouldn't have eaten (but also pointing out that no cookie should have this kind of value) and then Catherine, Alex and I were headed to go see Dune at the Rutgers Theater . . which isn't as fun to watch when your wife is mad at you-- and Alex and I were of the same mindset: it's just a cookie! and so we watched Dune-- which is a decent movie but doesn't really capture the heat and grit and dust of the desert . . . it's more Star Wars than Fury Road-- and then when we got home, Ian was up in his bed and he had been eating candy in his bed and throwing the wrappers and empty boxes under his bed-- as he is wont to do-- and this is a fineable offense for him, because it's gross and unhealthy and attracts mice-- and I got mad at him for doing this again-- and because he was hoarding a giant bag of Twix in his room-- and then Catherine got mad at me for getting mad at him because she said the reason he hoards candy in his room is that if it's downstairs, I'll eat it-- because eat everything, without regard for the owner (which is kind of true) and so I started making some rules about how no one is allowed to bring more than one serving of candy into the house-- because I can't control myself and everyone was pissed off at me and I was pissed off at everyone and I was sick of being treated like some kind of monster because I ate a cookie and then next morning I took the dog for a walk and then when I got back Catherine wanted to talk about what happened and I made a rash decision-- I took back my apology for eating the cookie! and this was very stupid but I wasn't really thinking clearly but I said that it had been in her cooler since last week and she hadn't told me the value, etc. etc. and there was more arguing but then I realized that I was wrong-- although I did get Catherine to admit ten percent guilt in the altercation-- she should have told me about the cookie and she shouldn't have overreacted so much and I made a special shelf in the cupboard for Catherine and Ian's food-- a shelf I'm really going to try not to violate-- and I got her a special cupcake at the special cupcake store that was just for (and I even waited in line . . . about a minute) and I also assured her that the cookie, from what I could remember, didn't even taste that good (and I guess this kind of shit is happening the world over because my boss Jess came in with a similar story-- she has two young kids-- and she brought home two cookies, one for each of them, but her husband ate one without asking and so she had to split the other cookie for her children) and it seems there are two kinds fo people-- people like me and Alex, who don't really treat there possessions all that possessively-- and people like Ian and my wife, who want their stuff and think people shouldn't steal and eat it (and those two are ore vengeful . . . Catherine made a batch of cookies and she put a post-it on it doling out the amounts-- Alex, Ian and Catherine got eight each but I only got three).