Cookie Monster
I met the guy I nicknamed Cookie Monster from (not) OkCupid. CM suggested we meet in Central Park for a picnic. “How much fun!” I thought. This would be a lot different than meeting at a bar for drinks! How romantic and laid back it would be to have our first date with the city twinkling around us.
CM said he would buy the sandwiches for our picnic and I decided to take it up a notch and bring a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, fruit, and bottled water. I went to the date starving! Never shy to eat in front of a guy, I held out for our lunch date. I was looking forward to getting to know someone who seemed like an awesome guy on paper. That’s just what it ended up being. He looked good on paper and that’s it.
CM was about a half-hour late to our date. I was getting hungrier and it was hot. I found some refuge under a tree. My stomach growled with each passing second. I think I even scared the park squirrels away.
Finally CM arrived—empty handed. That is, except for a small Dean & Deluca bag. I couldn’t wait to take a bite out of whatever sandwich he tastefully chose for me. My mouth began to salivate. He reached into the bag… and pulled out an open package of Pepperidge Farm cookies! I smelled bullshit. Those cookies did not come from the gourmet food shop. It was as if CM pulled the bag of cookies out from under the front seat of his car and masked the snafu by covering it up with a fancy gourmet food bag.
“WTF,” I thought. I wanted to turn the bag upside down and shake it out in case the sandwich was magically stuck on the inside. I peered inside the bag to find an empty sandwich wrapper!
I felt disappointed. Let down. How can one show up in such dire straits! He promised to bring the sandwiches, the main course! How could he?! I sat baking in the hot, sweaty, city, summer sun and he shows up empty handed except for a package of half-eaten Pepperidge Farm cookies that he probably found in his car and they weren’t even the Milano kind! Get this, they were lemon cookies! Who the fuck buys Pepperidge Farm lemon cookies?
CM claimed he circled around looking for parking on Madison Avenue forever and that he did in fact buy “a” sandwich but he was so hungry on the walk over to the park to meet me that he ate our sandwich and left me the cookies!
“Hello! I was sitting here for what felt like forever, sweating and starving, waiting for you,” I thought to myself.
All I can say to this friends is that my bottle of wine never went down easier. I chased down two lemon cookies with my vino, popped a few of MY grapes and split. I shared my snacks with CM because I am a nice person and after all two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s all about karma.
Cookie Monster sent me an email the next day suggesting that our next “date” should take place at my apartment where he would order us in Seamless and we could relax on my couch. How gentlemanly of him—not! I asked what made him think I would invite him to my place and he said I was over reacting. I told him we didn’t have chemistry and there would be no second date. Now only if he had brought me that sandwich….
