Mr Cookies

 I baked some chocolate chip cookies for my mother this past week. She's in an assisted living home back in Ohio, and like many elderly people, she's developed quite a sweet tooth. She never used to eat too many sugary snacks, but  time has had a way of changing all that. Anyway, I wanted to send her a little something. It wouldn't be very practical to send her down some turkey and stuffing, so I opted for some Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies. I've only baked them once before that I recall. I was baking them for Mom last year, and I had my friend Whitney, the downs syndrome fellow helping me. He had never baked them either, so it was an experience for both of us. While he was stirring the mix, he sneezed right into the bowl. We ended up sending that batch to HIS mother. Fortunately the heat from the oven must have killed any germs. I had the same problem this time that I had last time. I followed the directions to a T, but the cookies kept creeping in to each other. As I recall, the directions said to use a tablespoon of batter per cookie, which I did, but it didn't seem to matter. They were attracted to each other like the two poles of a magnet. They were almost big enough to use as targets for shotguns, like clay pigeons. The difference is that you could eat these. Actually, that's not a bad idea. If cookies were used instead of clay pigeons, after they were shot, you wouldn't have to deal with the mess. Either the birds or raccoons or some other wild animal could come and clean up afterward. They could almost be used for Frisbee's too. In fact they would probably be the perfect size for playing Frisbee golf. As you can see from the forth picture, trying to separate cookies that have an attraction for each other is very difficult. It's like breaking up  a family, very traumatic. At first I thought that I would just eat any of the broken ones. When it became apparent, after about the third giant cookie, that if I ate all the broken ones, not only would I have very few to send to Mom, but I would put on an additional few pounds that I'm trying desperately to keep off. Losing weight in Alaska in the winter is almost a joke. Not only do I spend more time inside sitting around, but I get hit with the double whammy of Thanksgiving and Christmas. To top it off, certain family members think they are showing Jan and I love by sending candy or fudge or cookies. I should send them a picture of us naked so they can see the damage that they've done. I can promise you that never again would we be the recipients of such goodies. Nothing but The Fruit of the Month Club or gym equipment for us. Back to the cookies. When I got near the end of the cookie dough, I was forced to put less on each spoon to kind of stretch it. They actually came out looking pretty good, although by comparison they seemed a little small. On the plus side though, they were easier to get off the baking sheet because I was only trying to remove one at a time. When I was trying to package them for shipment, I had to lift them en-mass into the gallon freezer bag. If I'd tried to separate them, there would have been nothing but crumbs for Mom. This way she can bite off as much as she wants. The Keebler elf I am not, but if my idea of chocolate chip clay pigeons ever catches on, I'll have a full time job in my retirement.