No, you taste like failed ideology, which is more akin to root beer: (The Fourth Best Foods Shaped Like Other Things)

It's a MiniBest!

Here's a thought I had, the first of many, and a thought that just struck me as both sort of sad/sort of odd, just tonight:

People only maked shaped cookies for special occasions.

Weird, huh? We make shaped cookies for Christmas, and for Easter, and for Halloween, and maybe, if you're really into them, other occasions, like, I suppose, Arbor Day or Lenin's Birthday or something.

But everyday cookies aren't shaped like anything but cookies. Why is that, I wonder? Is it only worth the extra effort to shape the cookies like something else if it's for a special occasion? Would people think it was weird if I baked shaped cookies for just a "Tuesday?"

I bet they would. I bet if I went right now and baked cookies, nobody would say anything about it (other than Sweetie, who would likely say "I thought you said you were coming to bed. Why are you making cookies at 10 p.m.?")(What's oddly frightening is that she might not ask that last part. She might just figure that's par for the course, for me.)

But if I were to get up and bake cookies shaped like other things, then everyone who saw me would probably say "What's the occasion?" and if I said "Nothing," they'd think I was weird.

But there's really no reason not to make cookies shaped like other things during regular periods of time. If I could have baked shamrock-shaped cookies last week for St. Patrick's Day and nobody would have thought it was strange, then why can't I bake, say, Pirate-Shaped Cookies this week and have everyone think it was okay?

That's the second thought I had tonight: I could invent pirate-shaped cookies, and popularize them, and make my fortune, and retire, probably by Friday at the latest.

Unfortunately for me and my get-rich-quick ideas, someone else had already done just that. Invented pirate-shaped cookies, at least. I don't know if they're rich. Probably not, because if they were, that would mean that pirate-shaped cookies were a big deal and I have never heard of them before, so they're probably not rich.

At least, though, I could bake pirate-shaped cookies, since it turns out there are pirate-shaped cookie cutters. I could get a pirate ship, a pirate pistol, and a treasure-chest shaped cookie cutter, which looks, when you see it, as thought I would not need it, after all, but, then again, if I was capable of making a treasure-chest shaped cookie on my own, I'd have done it by now, wouldn't I?



I found those cookie cutters online and was enthralled by the idea of making pirate-themed cookies, but that enthrallation was replaced instantly with a new obsession, prompted by this:




The "Princess Pig, Prince Frog" cookie cutter set -- seemingly based on some cookie-esque fairy tale that I never heard, but which, combined with the pirate cookie cutters, promised to give me at least a day of fun.

That was the third thought I had tonight, and then I had the fourth: then I thought about what I'd written here, and decided to find out if it was possible, in fact, to celebrate Lenin's birthday in cookie form.

Sadly, I learned that the world has yet to invent a Lenin-shaped cookie cutter and/or a Lenin Cookie (and, honestly, I'm astounded that Madison, Wisconsin, doesn't have, like, a million of them.)

But don't fret, because while you cannot sit down and dip Lenin in your glass of milk, you can eat a Lenin Pop:



Which means a couple of things: (A) Sweetie's going to wonder about this latest charge on my credit card, (B) the market for Communist Cookie Cutters is mine to take over like a modern-day Rockefeller only with less capitalism and more cookies ("Less Capitalism and More Cookies" sounds like Obama's 2012 re-election theme) and (C), well, I don't really have a C. I just got carried away with letters.

Life's like that sometimes: You set out thinking maybe you'll bake some Princess Pig and the Pirate Frog King cookies and you end up instead with a pocketful of Dictator candy and some big dreams.

Also, no matter where I go, those Lenin eyes on that sucker keep looking at me. Weird.