Zing! You've been pwned!

A few nights ago Emily was over and somehow my cookie-baking skills came up. I tell you--some things never die! I don't remember how the topic of cookies surfaced, but Emily was sure to remind me that my cookies are hard and insinuated that perhaps cookies should not be so.

"Well," Rachel said matter-of-factly, "Cookies are hard."

"Rachel, you just don't know any differently," said Grandpa. (*zing!*)


Five years (almost) of marriage has domesticated me quite well and now I can make lovely soft cookies. People are always coming up to me to ask me for my cookie recipes and so I tell them my secret: anything on allrecipes.com that consistently gets 5 stars. More specifically, you'll find this gingersnap recipe and this peanut butter cookie recipe. But anything with 5 stars usually turns out well for anyone.

I made cookies yesterday. Emily came over and ate some today. She approved. Now the cookies are all gone. And that's okay.

I spoke with my brother David on the phone a little while ago.

"I signed up for the 10K!" he told me, "So now we can run together!"

"I'm not doing the 10K anymore," I informed him.

"Oh, that's right! You're doing the half-mile." (*zing!*)

"No, not the half-mile," I answered like Pam from The Office, "The half-marathon." 

"Oh...right. The half-marathon. What would they call a half-mile, anyway?"

"I believe they call that a dash."

Today we were teaching Sunbeams, the 4-year-old class at church, and we were talking about honesty. For part of the lesson we were supposed to discuss reason we might not want to tell the truth and how even if telling the truth seems scary we should still do it.

"For example," I posited, "Pretend your mom made cookies and told you you couldn't have one yet but you took one anyway and she noticed. What would you do when she asks who took a cookie?"

No one answered.

"Okay, so you wouldn't want to say anything?"

A few heads nodded.

"Why? Why wouldn't you say anything? That's kind of like lying. Just because you aren't telling a lie doesn't mean you are telling the truth. Not telling the truth is the same as lying. Why would you feel like lying?"

"Because Satan makes us!" one girl yelled out.

"Right...but how? What does he tell us to make us feel like we have to lie?"

*Crickets chirping.*

"He makes us feel afraid of..." I prompted.

"Getting a spanking or a cold shower!" the same girl blurted out. (*zing!*)

Andrew and I burst out laughing. The other children quickly began listing other punishments.

"Yeah! Or getting put in timeout in the dark closet!" the first girl's sister said.

Punishment ideas were coming hard and fast. They ranged from "standing in the corner" to "having mom bring out the whip." I'm pretty sure some punishments were straight from the imaginations of the class (like the whip...) while others (like the shower...) I know have been used. Andrew was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his cheeks. I wasn't doing so well at maintaining composure, myself, but at last managed to pull myself together enough to get us back on track.

"The answer I was looking for," I gasped, "Was that he makes us feel afraid of getting punished. If you tell the truth you might still get a punishment but your parents will always be happy with you for telling the truth. But, if you lie about it and your parents find out that you did then you'll get in trouble for lying and for whatever you did to warrant lying in the first place. So it's always best to tell the truth."

Because no one wants a cold shower.