Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," baking until we break since 1987!
You know how it is. You start out sending cookies to friends and family because it's a cheap gift. Then they like your wares and start asking for cookies every year. Little do they know that most of your cookies are products of the Pillsbury Doughboy.
But not all. Some are really home made. And I need your advice, readers.
Before my dad flew off to spend eternity with Peter Pan, I used to send him a big cookie tin full of cookies every year right around now. He liked to eat them, and he liked having them on hand if company came. That's what he told me.
In truth my sister absconded with the bulk of Dad's cookies. Now she's asking me to make some for her. And I'm suspicious.
You see, Sis is one of those healthy type people who eat five servings of fruit and vegetables every day while getting plenty of exercise and gulping down vitamin packs with excess amounts of water.
It's counterintuitive, if you ask me. She's a fundie. Seems to me her pastor makes her heaven sound so good, you'd think she'd be so anxious to get there that she'd supersize her daily McDonald's meal! Nothin' but fries and pies -- get that heart attack done and get to heaven sooner.
This year once again Sis has asked for home made cookies. Do you know what I think? I think she's taking them to the fundie church potluck.
I am a Druid, but I do not practice Craft work. Are you kidding me? I'm about as brave about magick as I am about gobbling shrooms. If you take the Craft seriously -- which I do -- you don't wanna mess.
I'm faced with the prospect of baking cookies that I know are destined for fundie consumption, probably preceded by saying Grace and thanking God for the cookies' existence. (???)
So, first of all, I don't want to imbue my cookies with negative feelings toward their consumers. Bad cookie karma is something I do not need.
Second, I would like to infuse my baked goods with big, broad, flexible outlook.
Sis and I get along fine, but we rarely see each other. That's because there's a 900-pound gorilla in the room with us ever time we meet and greet. That gorilla is her faith, which point blank assigns me to hell.
I do not have such feelings about her faith. I believe in her god. I just don't worship her god. I think he has a mean streak. He's not alone in that. Lots of deities have mean streaks. But most of them don't have a gazillion followers who vote.
Before I get to sermonizing, I've got to ask. Does anyone know how to bake cookies that are laden to the plimsol line with positive vibes about inclusion and tolerance? Conversely, does anyone know how to spend four hours kneading sharp pecan pieces into tough dough without getting pissed off about the product's final destination?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Here's a mini-sermon. Don't you think it's criminal what they've done to Cookie Monster? He's not allowed to eat cookies anymore! Even as we speak, they're downsizing him in the Sesame Street pantheon rather in the same way that deities were downsized by missionaries back in the day. "Healthy Food Monster" can be blue and furry, but he can't shove fistfuls of cookies into his mouth and make yummy sounds. Ergo, soon you won't see him on the show at all. Or if you do, he'll be munching a carrot, mumbling that everything's all right because St. Bridget has her feast day.
Restore the awesome, moving power of Cookie Monster! Go and buy old back episodes of Sesame Street and show your kids that Blue is True! Carrots are for rabbits.
Our operators are really standing by for your call today. Advice on baking cookies can be dispensed in the "comments" section of this web site. Solidarity for Cookie Monster can be expressed here as well, but please back it up by taking the above steps and finding yourself an appropriate Cookie Monster t-shirt at the nearest thrift store.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
9 comments:
I think you should make the cookies in all kinds of positive pagan shapes like bright yellow suns, deer, greenmen, Cernnunose, wreaths and holly, etc.
Wouldn't it be a hoot for your sister to show up with those at a church bake sale??
Well, yeah, you could always make round sugar-cookies with a pentacle piped on them in frosting. Heh.
Or you could not make them at all, and do something else as a gift. Nothing says you have to make her cookies just because she asked. Perhaps you just don't have time this year, or are coming down with a touch of the flu and are just, oh, so tired.
Oooh love the idea of the pagan shapes. Maybe not Cernunnos...
I was thinking that all you need to do is think loving thoughts while you make the cookies and leave it at that. Think about how much you love whatever it is you love and don't think about the asshats at all. ;-)
Cynthia
beweaver.livejournal.com
Really an ethical situation on all counts. My advice would be to do something like Santa and his (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) elves. it does all come down to intent, and who could be jollier than some elves after all.
"You see, Sis is one of those healthy type people who eat five servings of fruit and vegetables every day while getting plenty of exercise and gulping down vitamin packs with excess amounts of water."
If she thinks she is going to that 'Christian' heaven, why does she even want to prolong her life here?
So that she can end her life crapping in a diaper again?
not only is the cookie monster not allowed to eat cookies, oscar the grouch isn't allowed to be grouchy...he is too mean they say...arghghghg!I say...
I for one would put some shaved exlax in the cookies...but then I'm a bad pagan...
Kayak says:
YDG beat me to this one! Some years back my home baked choc. chip cookies would vanish from my lunch at work. The next batch had six ex-lax doctored cookies all set aside and ready to unmask the thief. I took some regular cookies to work and handed a few out. Next day I took the doctored cookies. When they disappeared I simply watched to see who had a case of the Colorado Quick Step! I made it clear to the “gentleman” in question WHY he was in the shape he was in. When he expressed anger i simply put my hand around his neck, shoved him against the wall and told him that if he ever so much as looked at my lunch again I’d slit him from crotch to throat. No cookies ever vanished after that.
Your situation is of course a little different.
Think of the song “twelve days of Xmas”
Twelve crapping Xians!
Or
Twelve Xians crapping!
If you prefer.
Kindness will out (and besides, you'll never be able to match fundies nastiness-for-nastiness).
Re: Cookie Monster What do you do when venerating Pele becomes so prevalent that 80% of your young women end up being sacrificed in volcanos, and your population is on the verge is dying-out? You don't disrespect Pele (especially not while living on a volcanic island), but maybe you de-emphisize the sacrifice just a tad. Or maybe sacrificing 200-pounds of pineapples (or carrots) is the equivalent of sacrificing a 90-pound virgin.
If Cookie Monster eating carrots helps turn around our childhood obesity problem, then crunch-on blue dude.
I'm with Cynthia on this one - just think loving thoughts while you are making the cookies and that's the power they will have. As you are smashing pecans, think of it as reducing hardened kernels of hate to ineffectual bits of dust. Maybe the fundies who eat your cookies will feel less hate, even if they don't know why. Of course, they'd croak if they knew it was from love-filled Crafted cookies, but that just makes it more fun.
Post a Comment