I Hope You Know A Good Lawyer, Woman.

Take a look at that photo. Those are Minnie Beasley’s Handmade Almond Lace Cookies. And you are not going to believe what *big quotes in the air* Cute Redhead did this time.

Okay, so like, first of all, she flies out of the house this morning before God even turned the air on. I’m talking Dawn of Time early, okay? She’s off to some conference where she has to speak, or give a paper (whatever that means) (‘Hey you? Wanna paper? Here. Here’s your paper, g’bye.’), or do some BioGeoPhysioChemical cycling (I promise she actually does that sort of thing and I promise that right there is the full extent of my understanding it). She’ll be back tomorrow night, but by then I’ll be gone off to my (Very Top Secret Thing I’m Going To Do), so we’ll be total ships passing in the night.

Which is lucky for her because she ate the whole bag of the Best Cookie In The Wor–

Wait. You seriously need to hear this:

The Best Cookie In The World.

Now, I really don’t have a sweet tooth so it’s not that I didn’t get any. It’s that I designed the packaging for this product and my friend/client brought it over last week, gave a bag to her so that I could go over some of the new layouts coming down the pike.

Okay, that was like handing a case of bourbon to Dean Martin. And then winking.

He calls me today chewing me out (like only your friends are allowed to do) and I’m driving down the road listening to the message, and I’m swerving (okay, I know this comes off really bad but it’s the sorry truth). I’m laughing so hard I’m swerving, and it was a great laugh. The kind that left the coffee’s early morning pick-me-up in the dust. But the reason I’m laughing is because he’s saying things which he knows drive me crazy and he’s doing it because he knows it will make me laugh and he knows that will make me call him back.

*Quick Note On Calling People Back: I’m notorious for Unless You’re Paying Me A Lot Of Money, I’ll Call You When It Suits Me. Unless you make me laugh. If you make me laugh, chances are I’m calling you back because I like laughing. But if you whine, you can forget it. I’m raising the three best whiners in the free world. Don’t waste my time. Besides, like the rest of you, I have so many plates spinning on any given day, I don’t know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch.

So I call him back to talk shop but I lead off, referring to the message he just left, with this:

“Um what in the [not publishable] [very not publishable] do you mean you dropped off a bag last week and gave it to Cute Redhead?? Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?!” Then he starts laughing because he literally doesn’t believe me when I tell him, “No, you don’t understand this, Harmon: I have told you a million times! Do Not Ever Bring Those Cookies Here Unless I Am Here!”

The Investigative Work: After I get home, I go through the domicile looking for the bag. I’m honestly just looking for the bag because I need to see the bag all design-like, right?

Pantry. No bag.
Cupboards. No bag.
Fridge. No bag.
Freezer. Still no bag.
Other Fridge. Newp.
Other Freezer. Ha ha. Yeah no.

This woman, I can promise you, batted her Cute Redhead eyelashes, probably said something in her dyed-in-the-wool southern accent (which I love, but not right now because she stole my cookies) in answer to his Good Ol’ Boy greeting like, ‘Oh, om fahn.’ (Which is Hooked on Cute Redhead Phonics for, ‘Oh, I’m fine.’) And then ate every last one of them in front of God and everybody and threw the bag out and never told me and hid all the evidence.

And if you don’t think she would, you: #1) Are so not married and (or) #2: have never had this cookie.

So. Not to be outmaneuvered, Harmon swings by my studio with two new bags of this cookie.

I’ve actually got a heck of a lot more to say about this—in addition to some (and I’m not making this up) amazing news for a lot of you out there. But I’m stopping right now because while The Woman God Gave Me is away, it falls to me to make dinner, see to it the homework is done, require proof that the homework is done, break up fights, earn another degree in criminal justice because none of them will own up to who-started-it (not my first rodeo); I’m going to grill a bone-in ribeye and have a visit with a cocktail, gather the Spawn around the table, have a meal, and then enforce baths, teeth brushed and flossed, and you-can-read-a-pickup-truck-full-of-Shakespeare’s-complete-works-for-all-I-care-but-you’re-doing-it-in-your-bed.

Tomorrow, I’ll post about the big news.