Date: 2002 Written story

I passed the local cookie shop tonight. It's all they do, bake and sell cookies. They make all kinds but never more than a few types at once. Chocolate chip cookies are a standard and, I hear, their best. They add a variety of other types into the mix like sugar, oatmeal, oatmeal-raisin, oatmeal-chocolate chip, and unique ones with names like "Bluebird Eggs" and "Salandra Specials."

I never went there until yesterday. There was a tray of handsome cookies in the window bearing a "sugar free" label. On the door was a sign that struck me as rude yet beautiful at the same time. It said, "Open from about 10 am 'til about 6 pm. Sometimes we stay late, sometimes we close early. Want cookies for sure? Get here at noon. If you don't want a cookie, don't enter."

As I entered, the most delicious chocolate chip cookie scent filled my senses. The sweet smell of warm, ready to eat, fresh baked cookies wrapped around me like a soft blanket on a snowy day. It was warm in the tiny shop, and empty! But I had arrived pretty late. In fact it was 7 pm.

"Hello," said a classy woman as she walked from the back room to behind the counter. Two long, dark, braided pigtails hung from either side of her backwards baseball cap onto her white apron. She smiled.

"I'd like to try a sugar free cookie please," I requested, raising my eyebrow.

She grabbed one, sans wax-paper wrapper, and handed it to me. I tasted it. Amazing! She said it was sweetened with "love" and wouldn't accept any money because, "the first cookie is always free."

I asked how she knew that I'd never been in there before and she said she'd have remembered my eyes. Then she looked down over the rim of her glasses to glare at me.

"You haven't been in here, have you?"

I assured her I hadn't and promised that next time I'd also say it was my first time. Somehow we ended up in a long conversation. Her name is Salandra and she owns the shop. She always works until 7 and never arrives at 10. She told me stories about how she traveled all around the world to learn to make cookies. When she was young she wanted to train with the top chefs but never had the desire or discipline to learn how to make anything other than cookies. She's been baking for the past 14 years. I asked Salandra why she never baked anything besides cookies.

"Because it's a pain in the ass," she cracked, "By keeping to cookies I've found ways to jam the flavors of a full feast into one simple two-inch cookie. I finally settled down a bit and opened this shop. I chose the tiniest place I could find with the lowest overhead. Now I can continue to bake cookies how I want to bake cookies. That's what I like to do. And I sell cookies only to people who want them. I don't advertise because I don't need to. And if some jackass asks me for specific cookies for a special occasion I'll tell them to go to hell and send them to the caterer down the street!"