If you give a Joel a Cookie OR What Do I Want--a Cookie?

At work about twice a week I stop by the office for a group of condominiums. They always have a plate of cookies out and they are so delicious. Here is the evolution of my relationship with the cookies:

1. I would notice the plate of cookies and look longingly at them for a brief few seconds, and then move on.

2. After a few months or so, If none of the employees were around, I would sneak a cookie and hide it in the palm of my hand and then devour it ravenously when I returned to the van.

3. After I got back from school this time and returned to this job, I reasoned that it was pretty immature of me to take cookies so I decided not do it anymore.

4. One day, out of nowhere, one of the employees ASKED me if I wanted a cookie!

5. This same employee started to suggest it every time I came in. I felt like I had turned a page in my life. It was wonderful. I would look forward to it all day.

6. Sometimes I would joke that I would get fat. Sometimes I would forgo one, self-conscious that I might lose some goodwill.

7. Months go by. Just the other day, for the first time, I realized that I was so confident in taking a cookie without even being prompted that I no longer just wanted one cookie, but that I clearly needed--no, deserved-- TWO cookies.

8. To pull off the double-cookie coup I wanted the same conditions that I wanted so long ago: namely, no employees around.

9. As I mulled this around in my head on Friday, I went in, and analyzed the situation: the coast was clear. I did my business, swung by the plate, swiped two cookies and continued walking out like I owned the place. Back in the van, I snickered in fiendish delight, wallowing in self-crapulence.


And thus we see the slow descent that comes upon me when you dangle a delicious morsel in front of me. What placates me now will be a pittance later. What will I try next? Three cookies? Four? The whole plate?