I hope they were at least the type of treats that clean your teeth

As a tennis instructor, B was showered with small Christmas gifts from the people he teaches throughout the holiday season. Most of these were gift cards and many were homemade cookies and sweets. And in my opinion, one of the best things about the holiday season is the plethora of homemade goodness. Whenever I take a step back and have a good serious look at my life, it's pathetic how much of it revolves around eating cookies.


As you can imagine, an outpouring of these came within the few days before Christmas, when I had already scampered off to Philadelphia. B had to work a few extra days and would meet me down there before Christmas Eve. Instead of immediately ingesting all of them with the force of a Dyson three-cylinder bagless vacuum cleaner, which is what I would have done, B piled all the baked goods onto the kitchen counter before driving down to spend Christmas with my family.

When we got back to Massachusetts, after a slightly stressful (and for me, hunger-filled) 10-hour drive, I dropped my bags at the back door and made a beeline for the pile of treats before me while B headed upstairs.

Oh GINGERBREAD MEN! I hadn't had one of those cookies yet this year! Let's start there, I thought. They looked deliciously homemade and after THAT car ride, just what I needed.

I bit off the head and chewed. Interesting. Kind of bland. Definitely must have been baked by one of the kids B teaches. That's cute. Someone needs to learn a different recipe though. I chomped off a foot and chewed slowly while I contemplated. This is definitely kind of gross. This tastes like a mouth full of wheat. What type of parent would let their child give out these disgusting cookies to their tennis pro? I put the rest of the cookie down and moved on to some fudge to cleanse my palette.

B came into the kitchen, followed by the dog, and walked over to the counter where I was hovering by the goodies. He reached for the bag of gingerbread men. "Oh, don't even bother with those," I said. "They're kind of gross. Who made you those?"

"Did you eat one of these?" he asked.

"Yeah, they're really bland."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Blegh."

"That's good because they're dog treats."

"What?"

"My aunt made them for Rooney. You just ate a dog treat."

And with that, he threw the rest of the cookie into the air and we both watched as Rooney gobbled it down. Naturally, this just made the entire 10-hour drive through white out snow worth it for B. That chance to have me eat a dog treat.

Maybe next time I'll be a bit more cautious before shoving unknown goods into my mouth (that's what she said). But probably not.

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