It is not often I get unsolicited packages in the mail, but such was the case today.
Imagine my surprise and baffled glee when I excitedly ripped open this mysterious parcel and discovered a bag of freshly baked cookies!
Who are they from? Well, I actually do not know the magnanimous Baker in person. A few weeks ago, my cubicle buddy, CP, offered me some cookies. I never turn down handmade cookies. Those chocolately caramel-centered bites were heavenly. While I was busy scarfing down every brownie-like crumb, CP explained that his friend’s brother bakes for fun and then randomly mails out the goods to people from a list of addresses he has compiled.
My interest was immediately piqued. Free cookies? Surprise gifts in the mail? Who is this freakishly generous cookie Santa dispensing sweets from the sky?
Each charming package contains a slip of paper that details the flavor, asks for critiques, and ends by inviting recipients to submit a home/office/apartment address to the included e-mail address if they would like to possibly be sent a batch themselves.
So of course I submitted my apartment address. (I desperately wanted to sneakily submit my parents’, office’s, and M’s work addresses as well, but the thought of becoming an obese cookie monster gave me restraint.
In that same e-mail, I also wrote him an embarrassingly gushy message lavishly praising his baking prowess.
Obviously flattery works because here I am with my very own box of cookies!
Unfortunately, as soon as I saw this batch’s flavor - Orange Cranberry Cookies – every ounce of my citrus-flavored-dessert-hating wrath was invoked. I hate lemon meringue. Orange-flavored chocolates are an abomination and I hate key lime pie. I especially hate orange Julius’. So I was expecting to hate these cookies.
But they are soft, sweet, buttery and tender. They melted in my mouth. Despite its obvious presence, the hint of orange was understated and relatively inoffensive. They reminded me of Thanksgiving.
Maybe it was the fact that their unexpected arrival brightened up my day. Maybe it is because they are free. But they are imminently unhateable. 
Miaosie tried to eat that bite out of my hand.
I ate two in a row, then had a devious idea.
M comes home from Arizona tonight (yay!), very late, and will not read this post until the morning. Since I cannot bake to save my life, if I pass these cookies off as my own, baked from the goodness of my loving, kind, and considerate heart, he will think me the best girlfriend ever. At least for a night.
I bet you would like to know that precious e-mail address, right? Well, if I tell you, it diminishes my chances of receiving more cookies so I think I will just hold onto that secret.
xoxo,
Jenn
