Sticker Shock

Peanut Butter Cookie (Sugar, enriched flour, peanut butter, partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, eggs, reese's® peanut butter flavored chips, peanuts, margarine, molasses, baking soda, natural vanilla flavor WONF, salt )

1 cookie(0.5 oz)

12

59

34

14.5

590

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About two years, ago, the Matron was innocently going about her own business when she was overcome with the desperate need for Sugar and Caffeine: NOW.

Because a Bruegger's Bagel Shop was closest, she landed there.

While a bagel sounded good, the calorie-health conscious Matron decided that a cookie might be slimmer fare--this being 4:00 in the afternoon, a between lunch and dinner emergency. She could practically smell the peanuts wafting from the plastic wrapped peanut butter cookie.

But.

For some odd reason --she had never done this before and hasn't since--she asked the clerk if there was a nutrition sheet for the dense peanut butter cookie she was holding in her hand. Indeed, if there had been a terrorist attack, she could have vaulted that thing across the room and knocked anybody down with one strategic throw to the skull. It was that heavy.

Imagine her shock: 590 calories in ONE COOKIE.

Matron to clerk: "Do you know this ONE COOKIE has a third of the calories an adult, ahem, middle-aged woman needs in an entire day?"

Clerk: "Did I tell you that my granddaughter finally got her catheter removed? She can poop and pee now without the tubes."

Matron (how old are you? fearing they shared a birthday only the Matron still has her teeth): "Uh, that's great. But this cookie has 590 calories! That's criminal."

Clerk: "She's a dwarf. Did I tell you that?"

The Matron has a similar exchange about the 'dwarf baby granddaughter' every time she tries to buy her 330 calorie bagel. That's over 200 calories LESS THAN a cookie. Plus, she wonders if that poor child (who is two now) will ever live beyond the descriptor "dwarf baby."

Of course, the new health care bill requires all restaurants --including fast food joints -- to post calorie counts. She's pretty sure she's going to ignore anything about muffins at Starbucks. . .

Any guilty pleasure you want to continue, calorie count aside?

Oh, and that tent thing last night? The troops rolled indoors, where the Matron was waiting, around 10:30 pm. If there hadn't been that bloody nose (Merrick), tummy ache (Scarlett) and argument ( ), she would have been in bed by midnight.