If a game show host, in front of millions of viewers, poses a question to you, as to what are the most “sinfully decadent” cookies, you might answer as I would. Nothing compares to the scent of freshly-baked chocolate, mint, caramel, peanut, or coconut cookies. Thousands of fresh-faced, dewy-eyed little girls, with dimples, freckles, and smooth, curly or frizzy hair sell millions of these cookies each year. Little girls of all colors, sizes, and nationalities, outfitted in their crisp, starched, green uniforms and pigtails march over the horizon in a green army with one goal in sight — capturing a new “cookie market.” Swarming across America in springtime, like Genghis Khan’s horde, this green army conquers one city after another — in waves crossing the continent with their surfeit of cookies. Little girls armed not with swords or spears, but with black ballpoint pens, an order pad, and an iPhone. In a Genghis-like stroke of genius, this strategy of war — take no captives, sell to everyone — forces the competition to “fall on their swords,” or in this case, fall on the unsold cookie boxes piling up in warehouses. I wanted to introduce this green army to a new market — women’s prisons.
Convincing unit management to participate in this scheme, to sell cookies to 800 prisoners, was my first hurdle, before setting the warden’s approval. The first step of this epic journey begins with knocking on the door of Unit Manager Gina. My persuasive charm and considerable skills would mesmerize her, I hoped.
Unit Manager Gina was a real card. She had a disagreeable look on her face, the kind of look plastered on an iguana sunbathing on a rock and you’ve just interrupted her meditative state.
“The door’s open,” she croaked.
Gina raises her eyebrow high, crinkling her brow at the same time, she narrows her other beady eye, muttering, “Sit.” I walk into her office and perch on the edge of the other desk. Propped in front of her computer screen, Gina folds her fashionable, “praying mantis” like stick figure into the cushiony chair, guzzling down the remains of her Starbucks coffee.
Half-expecting to see her unfurl her rolled-up tongue to grab the darting gnat encircling her empty coffee cup, I waited for her to speak first.
“What now, Henning?”
Forcing a smile, I attempted to break the glacial ice.
“Look, those girls in green uniforms are selling their cookies again this year, and I thought …”
“You think?” she interrupted.
Restraining myself, I continued. “They sell a lot of cookies … everybody loves the cookies … and I’m sure the officers have children, at least some little girls … Why not take cookie orders from all the inmates? We can pay for the cookies out of our trust accounts.”
She perked up and swatted the gnat with one attempt.
“And the kids can earn commissions,” I whispered.
Gina’s eyes magically shifted from dullish-disinterested muddy brown to bright, twinkling, swirling irises of caramel latte.
“I have a kid too,” she said, smiling at the thought of spending her kid’s future cookie commissions. “Let me check with the warden and see what she has to say about selling the cookies to you guys — on behalf of the kids. Now get lost.”
She swiveled her chair back to her computer and hunched over her keyboard. Click, click, click go the keystrokes as she taps out more disciplinary reports. Real or imagined, I left with high hopes.
About a week later, I got called back into her office. I stopped at the threshold of her door. In my defense, I stated, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
Cautiously hoping that to be true, I waited for Gina’s response. “Get in here, Henning.”
I trudged into her office and plopped down in a new chair.
“What do you know about Charlene getting punched and knocked down in AB pod? There’s blood all over the floor. She’s got a concussion and can’t remember.”
I rolled my eyes, blurting out, “Don’t you have cameras?”
“No, they’re broken.”
The iguana face was back. No facial tic or emotion on her face. Exasperated, I said, “Lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches and she probably stole someone’s tray. You know. I don’t care. I want to talk about cookies.” I folded my arms and glared at her.
“Get a porter to clean up the blood. It’s not my problem.”
She twisted around in her comfortable chair. Gina assessed me with cold precision as she glanced up and down.
“The warden said OK on the cookie sales. We’ll get the order forms ready and hand ‘em out to everyone. Happy now?” she grunted. “Get the hell out of here.”
I could tell she really didn’t care if Charlene got another beating for stealing.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am happy.”
Gruff to the bitter end, she went back to her disciplinary reports. The only one with a gripe will be the porter, who gets to clean up the biological hazard — the blood. The prison pays a dollar for each biological or hazard waste cleanup. Prison is a callous place but lucrative for biohazard waste porters.
I couldn’t wait to get my soiled hands on the order forms. Wow, look at the selections. We’ve got Hawaiian coconut-pineapple upside down cookies, chocolate-caramel-raisin snappers (sounds dangerous), caramel lemon peanut chiffon cookies (shortbread) called “shorties,” stamped with the Irish three-leaf clover design, chocolate-coconut-crushed peanuts-caramel drizzle, these were “drizzlers,” chocolate chip-white chocolate-green tea sandwich cookies called “tea timers,” and my favorite, the maximum-powered, chunky-mint cookies with green minty cream centers dipped in chocolate sauce.
“I want them all,” I screamed to my neighbor. I turned around in my creaky, plastic “Croc” knock-off, state-issued shoes and asked the auburn-tressed vegan if there was anything on the order form she could eat. She squealed, “Everything!” I pointed to the red trousers, hiked up and twisted, at her midsection.
“Oh, this?” she laughed. “I’m trying to get the warden’s attention about the crummy pants. They don’t fit.” She squealed as she skipped down the hallway. I called after her to turn in the form by tomorrow’s deadline, adding the cookies would be delivered in three weeks. (How would I live until then?)
I ordered five boxes for myself. However, I’d have to go for three weeks without soap to wash my socks. I’d rinse my socks in hot water … to save money. Heck, it’d be worth it. I could taste the creamy green-mint filling on my tongue. I could feel the plaque from the sugary cookies forming on my teeth.
The highly-anticipated day arrived and we were all pushing and shoving the “gray geezers,” with their walkers, canes, and wheelchairs out of the way. They had a tendency to pack together like a gang and run up the backs of your heels with their devices. This served to push others out of line.
The gangsters approached the geezers and struck bargains to sell their cookies at extortionist black-market prices. At last I shuffled to the front of the cookie line. I received a heavy duty plastic cookie bag stuffed with “cookie loot.” Looking around for any signs of a potential cookie-jacking, I guardedly made my way, inch by inch, with my back against the wall, and returned to my cell unmolested. Pacing like a caged cat inside the cell, I decided to place a trash bag over the window in the door, in an effort to keep out the slithering, creeping, crawling dead, those “ne’er-do-wells” whose clawed hands are continuously begging for soups, coffee, sweets, creamer, and hygiene. They never pay back, they never work, and they sleep all day, emerging to line up against the concertina-wire fences with their outstretched, cupped hands begging for food and drugs.
Chomping down two sleeves of the caramel “shorties” and the chunky-mint cookies, dipped in dreamy chocolate sauce, exhausted me. I laid down to rest. Bloated, but happy. I ignored the knocks on the door from the creepy crawlers, as well as their notes pushed under the door with their claws. “Give me, get me, buy me …” I knew their sales pitch by heart.
Everyone bought from one to six boxes of their favorites. The sales were a smashing success, but somewhere between gobbling down the first “drizzle cookie’ and the next sleeve of chunky-mint cookies, we realized the disclaimer on the inside flap had a stern warning issued to the consumers: “You cannot resell the cookies.” In other words, all those little girls in green uniforms aren’t building massive customer bases while some profiteer marks up each box of cookies with an additional 35 percent to a captive market. My friend, with the squealing voice, was dismayed with the warden’s unrelenting greediness. She then contacted the green army’s corporate juggernaut, specifically the sales and public relations department, to report the warden’s greedy plot to make an unholy profit on the tiny titans’ retail operations.
A kerfuffle and a tussle ensued. Big Mama running the Big House had a lot of explaining to do at Corrections’ Head Office, after the debacle and embarrassment settled. One call to a corporate attorney on behalf of the kids and a conference call to all interested parties, and BAM! Big Mama went down. That escapade, instigated by my friend, stopped the illegal black market trading of those scrumptious chunky-mint cookies.
This was critical to preserve the integrity of the “Cookie Empire” and the pint-size marketeers. It didn’t seem right for a prison profiteer to undermine the business strategy of these little girls. The prison warden got trounced by her own greed.
Free to follow their capitalistic aims, the Genghis Khan horde of little girls continues to capture new markets, not with spears and shields, but with those sinfully decadent cookies.
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