Memories

                Fluffy white batter, sweat creamy chocolate, sugar so light that it melts on your tongue. Those are some of the things that I lacked in my childhood. I am going to be completely and totally honest with you. The Jones’ are not bakers. We are smilers, jokesters, dancers, and pranksters but not bakers. We can definitely cook but only food of the Hispanic variety. Ask for arroz con pollo and we’ll deliver it to you on a silver platter.  But ask for brownies and you’ll have to chisel it off the pan. I’m not complaining; it’s just the way things are and always have been. But my brother and I thought that we could challenge Fate one day. We soon discovered that in a fight between a couple eight year olds and Fate, Fate will always come out on top.

            It was a nippy November afternoon. A sheet of ice had concealed the road. Alex, my younger nuisance, stared in awe at the glistening icicles that hung from our neighbor’s home. But the icy marvel was soon stolen away from us as Joe, the owner of the house, plucked off an icicle and stuck it into his beer.  As Joe scratched his graying chest hair, Alex glanced up at me, boredom etched into his six year old face.

            “What do you want to do?” I asked. Alex shrugged his bony shoulders while twiddling his thumbs. Suddenly something hit me.

            “WE CAN BAKE COOKIES!” I announced with a flourish. My friend, Shaquisha, was bragging the other day about how every year her family baked cookies to welcome the holiday season. In my eight year old head that sounded like the perfect idea; something straight from a Pillsbury commercial.

            So we set to work; our stubby arms grasping for supplies and our stumpy legs shuffling around the kitchen.

            For our short little legs, reaching the kitchen cabinets might as well been Mount Everest. Luckily, my brother can climb like a spider monkey. He hoisted himself on the counter and scuttled to grab the kitchen utensils necessary for our endeavor.

            Both of us being only children at the time, we knew nothing about the actual steps on how to make cookies but we did know that the basic ingredients called for eggs, butter, and flour. We figured that if we just tossed the ingredients into the bowl, stirred it up, and popped those bad boys in the oven, cookies would be the end result. I cracked the egg, letting the long string of yolk dribble into the plastic mixing bowl. Alex dumped in the flour and poof!  My brother went from black to white in 2.5 seconds. I tossed in a stick of butter then began to stir as hard as my skinny arm could possibly stir.  But it still looked like a powdery, lumpy, eggy mess. Tears of frustration dotted my eyes but I wouldn’t give up. I instructed my brother to fetch some Play-Doh from his room to give it a doughy quality that raw cookies were supposed to possess. I added a bit of blue, a pinch of orange, and a dash of red. Now it went from a pale lumpy mess to a rainbow decorated disaster. In just one hour we managed to waste half a bag of flour, three packs of flour, and my brother’s dignity.

            In some other parallel universe, when my mother would have arrived, she would have giggled at my brother and I flour covered bodies. She would have lovingly cleaned our flour covered cheeks, mopped up the mess, and then assisted us in making real cookies. But unfortunately, this fairy tale does not end in a happy ending.

            “WHAT THE (beep) DID YOU DO TO MY KITCHEN!”