You Again Old Lady Cookie Jar
A blue cookie jar helps Elsie become through her days
Elsie was obsessed with her cookie jar.
It hadn't started that manner. At starting time, it was practically useless, merely a vehicle for her love chocolate chip cookies. But and so, fifty-fifty later each cookie had gone, annihilated by the impatient and hungry parents and siblings who shared them, the jar remained. Elsie found information technology comforting, in a metaphoric sense. In identify of a blimp animal, or something more commonplace to carry around for a girl her historic period, she even began to bring information technology effectually with her, in spite of its excessive weight. She felt that she was sending a clear bulletin to the jar: she appreciated its loyalty, and this was her way of paying information technology dorsum.
Of course, she couldn't show it to her friends. First of all, they wouldn't understand. And second of all, even beyond the realm of being unable to cover her immense attachment to this jar of porcelain, they would make fun of her for it. It'southward not that they were mean-spirited; they just had a tendency to deed without regard for the feelings of the owners of said jars of porcelain.
And then, instead of foolishly carrying it around in broad daylight, Elsie kept her jar in her mint-greenish duffel bag. So as not to arouse suspicion, she put everyday items in there besides: a generously sized h2o bottle, a keychain to her one-time house, a keychain to her electric current business firm, and the thick cookbook she used to pore over before realizing that the true gift lay non in the cookie merely in its jar. For three years—ages eight to eleven— her organization had worked seamlessly.
That was, it had worked seamlessly until May five, 2020.
Stuck at home with her careless, lazy siblings during the quarantine, Elsie never quite realized how much school had offered an escape from home just as much as home had offered an escape from school. But it wasn't all bad. For ane thing, she didn't fifty-fifty take to worry about being separated from her cookie jar, and for some other, she didn't have to worry nigh her friends reacting negatively to said cookie jar.
Until May v, she hadn't even bothered to get exterior. Well, she had gone outside. She'd gone out for walks, and to ride her bicycle. She but hadn't gone outside with her family unit, nor had she gone exterior to a place that wasn't her neighborhood. Information technology would have grated on her much more than if information technology hadn't meant a surplus of time with her cookie jar. It was peculiar, because she had presumed that the countless corporeality of fourth dimension with the jar would cause a rift between them. Subsequently all, she'd simply gone off G&Ms after her mom had bought her an endless supply, and only seemed to get bored of The Office after she'd seen a whole flavor in a night (thanks to her cookie-jar-judging friends—they could sometimes be absurd). Information technology seemed to Elsie that the more attainable something was, the less enticing it afterward became.
To her luck, though, it never seemed that style with her cookie jar. She found that she independent the capacity to stare at information technology for hours upon hours, doing naught other than pondering its unique being and inherent kindness (in spite of being an inanimate object). Sometimes, she felt herself choking upwards when she thought about how information technology just held all kinds of cookies, no matter their size, quality, or blazon. The cookie jar did non bear witness a preference for the fancily busy yet tasteless Christmas cookies her brother insisted on making every year, nor the chocolate scrap cookies her piddling sis liked to broil merely as the family ran out of chocolate chips (then, really, they were no-chocolate-chip cookies). Information technology regarded them all equally the aforementioned. The thought made Elsie feel especially grateful for her beautiful, non-judgmental jar.
It seemed to Elsie that the more than accessible something was, the less enticing it subsequently became.
Anyway, on May 5, the family unit had received masks, two months after they had been ordered. Her parents, delighted they had finally come, decided that they should exercise something heady to differentiate the day from others. Elsie'southward eighth-grade blood brother, Tom, who was convinced that the coronavirus was simply a conspiracy theory made up by an army of shapeshifting reptiles led past Bill Gates, suggested they forget the masks birthday and become to SkyZone (its closure, he added, was simply propaganda that the reptilian army had promoted). Elsie herself was in favor of staying home and admiring her cookie jar, though her parents quickly vetoed this idea simply as it had begun to get traction from her as apathetic siblings. Her eight-year-old sister, Marsha, had the winning proposal to go to the beach, stating that she idea seashells would make perfectly tasty replacements for chocolate fries.
"Come on now, Elsie. Don't yous think you've had enough time with your jar? It'll even so exist there when y'all become back," her mother insisted.
Elsie frowned. "Every moment without it is a moment wasted. I'll bring information technology." Her mother reluctantly agreed. In some other family, Elsie's compulsive cookie-jar watching would accept drawn more attending from her parents, merely given the land of her siblings, she was by far the easiest child.
The embankment was beautiful, in spite of the lack of people. It struck Elsie every bit abnormal, even in such an abnormal fourth dimension, that there should be nobody else at the beach. She supposed she should consider herself lucky, as her parents hadn't really thought to avoid the crowd; information technology had just happened that way. Only it yet felt odd. Beaches weren't meant to be empty, at to the lowest degree non on gorgeous jump days. They were meant to be full of grumbling parents and their wayward children, who begged them to swim with them in the ocean. They were meant to be full of unthoughtful adults who willingly got sunburnt in hopes of a tan, and lifeguards scanning the h2o for any sign of trouble, and rude customers trying to cut the line to become their Italian ices start. On the i hand, she understood that it would exist downright dangerous for a large group of people to gather together on a beach. But on the other manus, beaches without the suffocating crowd of people didn't feel similar beaches. It was but weird.
Unfortunately, she was interrupted from her deep idea process by Marsha, who seemed to be holding up a seashell of some sorts in one hand and a expressionless crab in the other.
"Pay attention! I'll inquire yous again: which seashell would yous adopt to accept in the cookies? Tom thinks I should apply the beige 1," she said, pointing to the actual seashell, "which makes me recall I should probably apply the blueish." She tapped the expressionless crab. "What do you think, Elsie?"
"Oh, definitely the blue one," Elsie said firmly in the dead crab's management. "It will brand the cookies so much more complex." Just in the aftermath did she wonder if that meant she would be forced to eat the cookies full of dead crabs. Hopefully, she decided, her parents would inform Marsha of her mistake before information technology was likewise belatedly.
Marsha nodded, taking in the new data. "Practice you lot wanna go into the ocean with me?"
Elsie blinked, taken aback. "I'one thousand non sure if we're immune. I mean, if anyone's been pond, couldn't we, like, somehow become germs? And isn't it freezing?" She racked her brain, wondering if she should follow her sister.
"Um, well, we could merely stare at information technology," suggested Marsha, who seemed annoyed by Elsie'south objections, "and put our anxiety in. It'south fine. Whatever. We don't have to go in if you don't want to," she said.
Finally, Elsie decided it would about likely end up fine. "Alright. We'll go." She grabbed her mint-green duffel bag and quickly yelled to her parents where she was going.
As the two sisters ran eagerly toward the undoubtedly freezing and unforgiving bounding main, Elsie, completely focused on the fact that she was virtually to be drenched in water, completely failed to notice the peculiar, cookie-jar-shaped pigsty in her duffel pocketbook.
"It'due south not too cold," noted Marsha, whose feet had almost turned blue. "I mean, information technology could be colder. In fact, if you think nigh it, it'south kind of disappointingly warm," she added earnestly.
Elsie, meanwhile, looked paralyzed. She did non think of the water as disappointingly warm. She felt every bit though the water was barely melted from its quondam land equally ice, determined to set up her feet in an eternal state of coldness and pain. She didn't recollect it was a proficient idea to be putting her anxiety in the ocean with COVID-xix on the rise, nor did she think it was e'er a good idea to put her feet in the bounding main on a not-summer twenty-four hour period. How had she gotten there? How had she been so idiotic? Fifty-fifty as she scampered astern, she couldn't shake the dreadful, penetrating feeling in her feet.
"Hey, Elsie. Is that your jar?" Marsha turned and yelled toward her sister.
Elsie looked where Marsha was pointing, and to her absolute shock, she did run across her precious cookie jar. It was rolling in the water, its heaven-blue paint meshing with the deep blue ocean to class a swirl that seemed to be simultaneously getting covered in sand. This can't be happening, she idea, terrified. What would she do without her jar? How would she get through her days?
She knew what her family would say: just go another 1. That's what her parents would say, at to the lowest degree—Tom might propose rescuing it from the Upside Downward by searching via the air vents in their ceiling, every bit he had when she'd lost her teddy bear at six. Merely why couldn't they just understand that this cookie jar was so item? While Elsie, someone who firmly believed that cookie jars deserved more appreciation, did intendance for said inanimate objects equally a whole, there was something nigh this cookie jar that put otherwise united nations-shameful cookie jars to shame. It couldn't be replaced. And, watching her sister one-half-heartedly duck downwardly and try to touch it, she realized with a sinking feeling that it could not be rescued.
This tin can't be happening, she thought, terrified. What would she practice without her jar? How would she go through her days?
Elsie didn't call back she had ever cried so much in her entire life. Maybe as a baby, only babies barely do anything other than cry. She wasn't such a huge crier, anyhow. At least not in terms of actual, physical pain. What bothered Elsie more than were the little things, like lost cookie jars, the feeling afterward somebody else takes the last piece of block, and of course, the final 2nd twenty-four hour period of soccer practice (her teammates had found it odd that she chose that day to cause a scene, but they but didn't understand its significance like she did).
So, it probably made quite a lot of sense that her prized cookie jar'due south disappearance was such an awful moment for Elsie. She felt helpless because she knew she couldn't become farther into the sea and salve it. She as well felt angry because her stupid little sister barely put any effort into grabbing information technology when she'd had the chance. And more than anything, she felt guilty because if she'd simply left information technology at habitation, it would be safe, and none of this would be happening.
"Elsie! Marsha! What'southward going on? Is everyone alright?" Their female parent worriedly came over and wrapped her artillery around Elsie, who was however bawling.
"I lost it, Mom. I lost it. I can't believe I lost it. I was never supposed to lose it—"
"Lost what?" Elsie'south mom interrupted her, unable to embrace what had happened.
Elsie looked up, her brilliant cherry-red face shining even brighter in the sun'south lite. "My—I lost my c-cookie jar," she finally explained, shaking. She felt so embarrassed to have to say it aloud. How could she lose it? It was the atypical affair that she paid attending to.
"It'south okay, it's okay," her female parent replied gently, hugging her despondent girl. "It's okay," she murmured once again.
To Elsie's shock, though she kept expecting her mother to mutter nearly a future replacement, she never did. "Shouldn't we get, similar, some other ane?" she asked, non quite sure why the words formed in her oral cavity, given she'd been so opposed to the prospect only minutes agone.
Elsie's mother sighed. "I think we're done with cookie jars."
Elsie had stopped crying, only the sadness did not subside. "D-done with cookie jars?" she repeated dizzily. The thought fabricated her nauseous. Of a sudden, she felt like throwing up. What would she even do without her cookie jar? Sentinel TV? Exercise extra homework? Commencement following weird conspiracy theories? Actually make cookies? Even in her head, it sounded stupid. How could she have been so foolish? It seemed that in her attempt to appreciate and preserve her cookie jar, she'd actually made it even easier to lose it.
"Information technology's merely a cookie jar, Elsie," muttered Marsha, who was yet standing rather awkwardly near her sister and mother.
"Don't say it'south simply a cookie jar, as though somehow cookie jars are worthless," Elsie snarled in reply. She didn't understand why nobody took her obsession seriously.
Elsie's mother glared at Marsha pointedly. "Marsha, why don't yous join Tom and your father by the blanket? I'll simply talk a bit more with Elsie."
Elsie stared out onto the water. She just wanted to erase the day from existence. Not only would she accept her beloved cookie jar back, simply she'd miss all of the off-putting sights of empty beaches and her sister'due south disgusting idea to put a dead crab in a chocolate chip cookie.
"It's non fair that this happens to me. Tom and Marsha never pay attention to anything, and they never lose anything!" Elsie protested, somewhat childishly for her age.
Her mom nodded thoughtfully. "Get-go of all, Tom and Marsha lose things all the time! Why practise you call back there are never chocolate chips in the cookies? I always buy them for her, but barely seconds later on she loses them." She paused, well-nigh as though she thought it was impressive. She then added, "They're only not nearly as fastened to inanimate objects. Anyway, don't you recall that it's good for it to be complimentary? I bet your jar is in a much improve place."
"Y'all mean in the body of water, getting devoured by sharks? I don't think so, Mom," muttered Elsie, rolling her eyes.
"Why does it matter then much?"
"It only does!" Elsie insisted. "Everybody else gets to take their silly thing, anyway. Marsha makes weird cookies, and Tom likes weird conspiracies, so it'due south only fair that I should have my weird jar."
Her mom nodded thoughtfully. "I just don't think information technology'south healthy to have something similar that. If losing a cookie jar makes you this sorry, I tin't let you have another one. You're eleven at present, Elsie."
Elsie looked down. "I know how old I am."
"Almost eleven-year-olds don't bring cookie jars with them everywhere they go," noted her mom. Elsie knew she was right, but she yet felt the urge to object. That was only because about eleven-yr-olds were idiots and assumed that the cookies were somehow more than of import than the jar. As well, how could she exist expected to surrender something that had been the most significant part of her identity?
Still, she could see her mother's point. She supposed the cookie jar was, afterwards all, an inanimate object. And it was just because of her immense attachment that it had gotten lost in the get-go identify.
After a few minutes of painfully wondering if her days of cookie jars were over, Elsie's mother sighed. "Alright, Elsie. You know what? I'll buy you lot another cookie jar, and as long equally y'all go along it in the kitchen and promise non to remove it, y'all can keep it. Just if you take it to the beach once more, or to your room, or anywhere—"
"Okay! I'll practice that!" Elsie burst in eagerly. Any jar was better than no jar, she figured.
She sat down in the sand, throwing information technology onto her legs until they looked like statues. For the first fourth dimension in the whole trip, she found that the emptiness of the beach was somewhat special. It was unnerving, aye, but information technology was unique. And, probably, information technology would never happen once again.
Long Branch, NJ
West Lafayette, IN
Source: https://stonesoup.com/the-cookie-jar/
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