That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Most of us, at one point or another, have likely attended the School of Hard Knocks. Some were smart enough to drop out early, while others pursued Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

I was a bit more persistent than that. Not only do I now possess a Doctorate degree, but I graduated as a double major, to boot. In other words, I have spent an inordinate amount of time and effort so that I could be labeled as a highly decorated idiot.

In my defense, I have always felt that learning life lessons firsthand is absolutely essential. After all, it’s not easy to forget an education that was forged from blood, sweat and tears. Unfortunately, I had a plethora of truths to discover in this manner.

The wisest people I encountered during my youth (i.e. my father, my school teachers, and anyone on television wearing a suit) all felt compelled to impart to me any and every bit of mind-numbing minutiae they had ever accumulated, yet that was never enough for me. I needed something more concrete. I needed tangible evidence.

For example, my mother once informed me that the burners on the stove were capable of burning me to a crisp and that I should never, ever mess with them under any circumstances. This sounded reasonable, to be sure, but I could not conceptualize what so much heat would actually feel like.

As it turns out, a G.E. brand electric stove in the mid-1970s is capable of generating a temperature of approximately 17 million degrees, which most people would label as pretty damn hot.

That important data came to me as the result of a field experiment I conducted in our kitchen when I was only a wee toddler.

Our coveted cookie jar rested precariously atop a ledge high above our oven. Theoretically, that made it unobtainable by the Cookie Monster, an awkward moniker thrust upon me largely in part to my unfortunate addiction to chocolate chips and sugar.

Running on instinct alone, I began my ascent from the parquet floor to the far-reaching heavens using the burner flame knob as a hand-held perch. In the process, the switch was inevitably adjusted to the high heat position, and by the time I maneuvered my way to the top of the appliance, my right hand clamped down on the worst possible spot.

Concentric rings sizzled their way through my fragile flesh as my cookie expedition was mercilessly cut short long before its delicious fruition.

After a bout of hysterical screaming, my dad cut open an Aloe Vera plant in our yard and proceeded to use its internal healing properties to soothe my seared psyche.

Undoubtedly, learning how to use Aloe Vera to counteract the devastating effects of third degree burns became invaluable over the next decade of my life as I was introduced to new wondrous concepts such as fireworks, triple flame lighters and my father’s welding supplies. That, as they say, is another story.

As for The Cookie Incident, it was so memorable that a few other lessons recorded their way into the vast annals of my woefully disorganized brain.

Obviously, I was able to ascertain exactly how hot an electric G.E. stove can burn, as well as the worst possible way to climb on top of an oven. Next time, I avoided the power knobs altogether. Unfortunately, that lead to another enlightening event I like to call Falling From the Top Counter is No Fun Whatsoever followed immediately by the realization that ceramic cookie jars are NOT very durable.

Perhaps the most edifying knowledge I discovered, however, is that things have a way of working out. I was willing to risk life and limb for a handful of cookies. I almost burned off all the nerve endings in my hand and my mother surely wanted to kill me then and there, thus saving her years of grey-hair accumulation. But, in the end, she felt so bad for her wounded little boy that she tried to cheer me up with a big plate of cookies.

Such quantifiable findings can only be labeled as a total and utter success.