Cookie monster is a predator and other bedtime stories

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being internet-free for a long weekend. And despite getting into a doozy of a car accident whilst leaving town, it was a good one. 

What makes a good weekend? Well, if I were to create OKRs for my free time, the objective would be to intentionally cultivate manic swings in which I’m able to A) create all the things or B) be unconscious and/or be so mentally inaccessible that I might as well be unconscious.

The key results and metrics would look something like this. 

Objective	Key Result	Metrics
Do all the things	Write on my tippity-tap	Two sessions of 10+ minutes over the course of a long weekend.
	Wished that the phone would not ring for me with a sad cancer update	Can you disprove a negative? Yes, if you put it in OKRs and speak to it with authority. Also, if you light a low-key altar in a secluded spot and it works, kthxbye.
	Cook a lot	One meal + one snack pushed on the group. Extra credit for pushing things on the group even though they’re already full.
	Eat even more	Exceed capacity of hard pants.
	Scouring the hillside for a bathtub that your companions have searched in earnest for year-after-year.	Get mildly drenched while internally questioning whether this thing is real and part of some demented hygiene fever dream. You do not need to find said bathtub to be successful. Just being dumb enough to go search for it is enough.
Do none of the things	Sleep. A lot	One session of 9+ hours, or one session of 8 hours + a one-three-hour nap, one session of 8+ hours + dozing off indiscriminately on the couch.
	Waited with bated breath for landline phone calls with play-by-play updates from Burning Drenched Man	Doing so while while pretending to be asleep or nose-deep in a book.
	Watched two grown adults squeeze into the bottom bunk of a twin bunk bed three nights in a row but do nothing to get them to actually switch beds with you except mention how ridiculous they look, even though you’re alone in a full.	The absence of action is action. Someone smart said this, so it must be true. Don’t ask me who it was though.
	Avoid getting involved in board games that might make your blood pressure rise.	Refuse 2+ invitations. It’s okay to listen to other people play board games and experience a rise in blood pressure by association, so long as you’re pretending to sleep or nose-deep in a book.

But really, while I crushed all of these goals and deserved a personal promotion, the most impactful key result of the weekend was this post. The moment when a devious plot about Cookie Monster was created in deep collaboration with bacon and my friend Scott. 

Let me set the table for you. It’s convenient to do this since we were actually sitting at the table, stuffing ourselves with a glorious breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and bacon. I gazed out the window to wonder at the rare misty morning. 

Ah, the transformative and calming powers of nature. 

Complete the picture with blue jays getting muscled off a bird feeder by buff chipmunks and it’s like you were there. 

Under the spell of such beauty, it’s only natural that I’d turn my attention back to the assembled breakfasters to ask if anyone had ever considered what it meant that Cookie Monster’s eyes were above his head and pointed straight forward.

This group is used to my random observations, but usually, someone asks a clarifying question or argues me into submission within a beat or two. But this time, there was a degree of silence.

I abhor silences and strive to fill them whenever possible. Unless the silence is hours long and I can read a book. Then I abhor people filling them.

This situation resembled the prior more closely, so I continued.

“He’s a predator.”

Full stop. 

Another moment.

Me (again): One cannot dispute biology. 

Now, that last part I might have just said in my head. Or maybe I made up just now because it makes me sound pretty astute. Either way, it’s true. His eyes are on top of his head, and they face forward. And yet, despite the visual cues, nobody suspects Cookie Monster of being more of a nuisance than a well-appointed vacuum could handle with a long-suffering breath and a few attachments. 

Finally. A noise. 

I turned to my right, and I saw a pleasant sight. Scott was warming to the topic. His finger tapped against the side of his face, and the brainstorm began. And so, I bring you our premise. 

What if the Cookie Monster were a predator? 

And what if he were not just a hunter of cookies? 

What if he was actually the mastermind behind a cookie syndicate with little respect for human life and a penchant for trafficking?

This, admittedly is some dark shit.

Yes. What if Cookie Monster was the dark lord of a child cookie syndicate? The master architect of an underground bakery lair. The kind that chains up children and banishes them to short lives of cave-bound misery? What if this cave were filled with pits of jumpy fire?

Nobody would expect it of him because he's so cute and furry and inarticulate and shit except, maybe, the vacuums. They would know, but unfortunately, they can’t talk. But for the rest of us, it’d be the perfect cover.

OMG. He's probably been pulling this racket for decades. And honestly, since he may actually be immortal, he could go on with this crumbly deviousness indefinitely. Or as long as the National Foundation for Public Broadcasting was low-key funding his operation. After all, he wouldn't have a rich vein of cookie slaves if parents weren't so eager to put their children in front of his propaganda.

Devious as fuck, right?

(Even now, I’m judging my own parenting. But since I have it on good account that my husband only remembers Aidan watching Dino Train and Iron Maiden videos from ages 2-4, I think we’re good.)

But if Cookie Monster is such an evil genius, how did his dastardly deeds come to light? After all, while Scott and I are exceptional detectives, we’re also busy people. Neither of us has the time to fully unravel such a vast and evil conspiracy. At least, not while there is snow on the ground for Scott to ski, water in the Reno white water park for him to kayak, or bodice rippers and smutty fantasy for me to read. Contrary to popular belief, The LoveHovel does not house a Dateline operation, and my child, by the grace of god and/or Iron Maiden, made it through his formative years without being indoctrinated by anyone except Biz Markie. And a good thing, too, or I’d be lying on a European beach somewhere with the money I saved for my son’s higher education desolate.

But I’m neither lying on a beach nor desolate. Okay. Maybe I’m a little desolate at the thought of an alternate me lounging about Corsica. But no matter, because this is where things get intriguing enough to wrest my brain from the seduction of the Mediterranean. Are you ready?

I tell you, Cookie Monster's empire began to crack because of a bath.

Yes, a bath.

(Remember all that talk of a fever dream bathtub I mentioned in the middle of a very dense paragraph above? Yeah. It’s back.)

So, sit down, kids, and let me tell you how Oscar the Grouch took down a criminal mastermind.

Cookie Monster is a predator and other bedtime stories: a draft-like outline

Oscar the Grouch is indeed grouchy, but he's also decided to try therapy. I know. But suspend your disbelief.

Being a child of the city, his therapist suggested a radical intervention. For Oscar to find inner peace and live his best life, his leggy therapist prescribed nature.

And a bath, but first, she thought she'd try pushing nature.

It turns out that Oscar has feet. On those feet, Oscar traveled out into the woods near the city. As he rambled the hillside, Oscar came upon a bathtub.

The weather was hot, and Oscar's weary feet yearned for a soak. So, Oscar positioned himself on the precipice of something he hadn't done since he was a wee grouchling. He perched delicately on the edge and put his feet in the warm, clear water. A pipe poked out from the edge of the unexpected bathtub and disappeared into the hillside, fed from a pristine mountain spring.

While Oscar eased up to the knee, he sighed with pleasure.

A bluejay let out a loud and borderline aggressive squawk that somehow made Oscar feel more at peace, he'd tell us later. It split the difference between the idyllic environs and his grouchy city heart.

In this perfect calm, Oscar felt at peace.

Then, the water began to slowly boil his furry feet. He annoyedly pulled them from the water and gave the pipe jutting from the tub a disapproving look.

And then he heard a soft scream pierce through the melodious blue jay squawking.

A child.

Despite his grouchiness, this grouch didn't care for child abuse. 

No, it could not be borne. So, his wet, almost dreadlocked feet left the water and hit the dirt, aching to comb the hillside.

What he found would stop even the most hardened, grouchy heart.

At the mouth of a cave, he heard the sound of many children. He felt the heat. And then he knew that he had discovered hell on earth.

The tub had been heated by the fiery pit of a slave labor camp. And when his sat phone connected with the local townsfolk, they did not hesitate to activate the largest human recovery effort the surrounding forest had ever seen.

And Oscar, uncomfortable with being the hero of the day, sat behind a rock and watched as child after child was ushered into the sun, their eyes squinty and pained from the light they hadn't seen in weeks, months, or even years.

The local milk factory had to completely overhaul its missing child design operations, so many children were found and reunited with their parents.

Oscar waited patiently for hours or days until every child was hauled out and Cookie Monster emerged in cuffs.

The tiny ember that flickered in his heart flared into an inferno as his former friend was led away to what he hoped would be a Polish gulag. It warmed him even as the sun dipped low and he found himself alone on the hillside.

Night fell, but Oscar didn't move. He reflected deeply, yes. But what kept him rooted to the spot, wasn't the spectacle and the thoughts that came in waves. It was simpler than that.

It came down to feet. Even with an afternoon of tracking through the woods, they were clean by grouch standards. A clear line separated the dirtiness of years from the work of a single afternoon. He gazed at his feet as he sat behind the rock, visible from the waist up as he always had been. Yes, he had saved an army of children today. But the secret of his feet and thoughts of a leggy therapist rocked him to his core.