Chasing down the UPS dude for my package wrapped in plain brown paper

Today as I am baking cookies and eating way too many misfits, I am reminded of my brother, John, who makes the best cookies in the world, chocolate chip cookies the size of Texas. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but they are saucer-size and an inch thick, made with real butter.

When my children were young, and I was too, my best friend and I waited and waited for the U.P.S. delivery truck for a package my brother sent from Reno. This was before computers and tracking devices, but somehow I knew the date they were to arrive. Maybe there was a phone number that I'd called. All indications were that the box of coma-inducing cookies was on the truck and would be delivered that day.

My best friend and I took turns peeking out the front door everytime we heard a truck clunk by. Our street was an east-west bypass, so there was fairly heavy traffic. Rose and I sat in my kitchen crabbing about our husbands and drank black coffee. I fanned her cigarette smoke out of my face, and we giggled about everything and nothing. Her laugh was like a machine gun, rat-a-tat-tat. Hearing her laugh, made others laugh.

We sat on the porch swing until our teeth started chattering. We let more cold air in the house fanning that front door open and closed. We had several false alarms. Then, I spied that mud brown box truck and squealed, "Here he comes!"

Both of us wild-eyed women bounded off the porch, down the concrete steps and darted out into the middle of the street, in front of the UPS truck. The driver honked. We waved joyously and smiled. He swerved to avoid us.

All we wanted to do was save him a few steps so he didn't have to run up on the porch. The poor young fellow looked us up and down, swore under his breath and kept tooling down the street, leaving us in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
"Hey, come back here, we want our cookies."

We couldn't run fast enough.

"What's wrong with HIM! I know our cookies are on that truck." I crabbed.

We went back in the house resigned to waiting one more day for the delectable box of calories.

Then, we heard it, the rumble of that same UPS truck coming up the street from the opposite direction. When we heard it screech to a stop out front, we darted to the driver's side, laughing, giddy as two kids. The poor guy froze in his seat; he looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"You have our cookies! We're waiting for our cookies."

He spoke but one word, "COOKIES?" Then he went right to work, handed me the package and I signed for the jerk!

Rose and I ran up on the porch and ripped into the plain brown wrapper. We laughed until our sides hurt wondering what that poor guy must have imagined about us and the contents of that package.

Yum-yum.

To this day, those were the best chocolate chip cookies ever!