“THE” Cookie Jar

        If you have been following along at all, you must know by now that my lovely wife was the most frugal woman ever known.  When we decided to move in together; after dating a while, we brought with us loads of “stuff”. However in all that stuff there wasn’t one cookie jar.

        Now I don’t know just why this bothered me so much, but I felt the house wasn’t complete without a cookie jar. Neither one of us ate cookies very often, be that as it may, I felt driven to find a cookie jar.

        We talked about what kind of cookie jar we should get and the first thing out of my mouth was,” I want something from our youth”, something that stood for the late 60’s early 70’s, something that would evoke memories of our childhood homes or maybe a friend or relative’s house. Something that screamed not whispered “Far out Man”

        The first thing out of her mouth was, “Cool, but we have to get it at a thrift store and we will not pay over 10.00”. But honey, think about this, people collect those old cookie jars nowadays and I serious doubt we can find anything nice for that little amount of money. None the less she held firm, and as always I relented.

        So for the next 5 months we searched and searched one thrift store after another. I found three piggy banks during that time but no cookie jar that fit the bill. Either they cost too much or they weren’t what we were looking for.

        And then the day came when we were in this little trash and treasure shop in some small town here in Texas and I’m sorry I don’t remember where, but please remember first I am a man and we had been to so many places in the five months before we found the cookie jar that everything seems a blur.

        I spied it first, and it was as if a light from above shone upon it and it seemed to glow! Look! Look! I cried with excitement, it’s perfect! It’s perfect! I saw her eyes light up with delight and joy and knew in that moment the long suffering search was over. We rushed to the jar as if to claim it before any other should spy it, though no one else was in the store. My heart pounded as I picked it up and looked at the price sticker on the bottom. 9.50 How lucky can we be, it is exactly what we were looking for and it was under the price she set.

        As I turned to purchase our grand find, she touched my shoulder and said the words that caused a foreboding chill to ripple down my spine. Standing there with my mouth open, dumbfounded, as if in a fog, I barely made out the words that could doom this whole bright moment.

        You know, I bet they would take less than they have it marked. She said with that twinkle in her eye that meant if they didn’t take less then my cookie jar would remain in this store and we would continue our quest.

        I knew it was too late to change her mind, the barter bug had bitten deep into her flesh and as if sent by God she approached the poor woman with which she would do battle. Is this the best you can do for this ole thing? She said, with an air of detached interest befitting a politician claiming he/she had our best interests at heart.

        The poor woman realized she was out gunned and stood no chance, she was forced to make a concession, she said, how about 9.00.

        I knew instantly that was not enough, Dolores wrinkled her face as if she had just bit into a lemon and as she shook her head no and sat the cookie jar down, she said I’ll give you eight! Time stood still, Months of searching hung in the balance, I couldn’t breathe.

       The lady looked at her and was about to offer something in between, you could see she realized if she wanted to sell the cookie jar all she could say was OK. Which is exactly what she did, and the smile that could light a room returned to my wife’s face and the angles sang and all was well with the world.

The Demonmaster

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