I wake with a jolt, flinching so hard my head jumps off the pillow and Crispy-my cat-goes flying with an unhappy meow/yelp. As I look around my dark room, I notice two things.
One, it’s still dark out.
And two, there's an odd crunching noise coming from a lump in the corner of my room.
Obviously, I’m not dumb-or at least not as dumb as some of those idiots in horror movies whose first instinct is to go check out the noise. No, my first instinct is to burrow under the covers and go back to sleep, horror movie logic is that nothing can touch you under the covers. But that's not how life works, so I do what any smart person would do; sacrifice the cat.
I pick up Crispy and gently scooch him towards the lump.
“Cookies?” The lump turns and yanks Crispy up, sniffing him before putting him back down. “Cookies?” Crispy jumps away, startled.
“Cookies?” The lump starts to move toward me and I back up, but not before I get a good look at it and oh boy, do I wish I hadn’t.
It’s purple and brown, with big black eyes and a mouth with no teeth. Also, it’s quite literally a lump-with small t-rex-like arms and two stubby legs. It’s a little bigger than Crispy and a whole lot louder.
“COOKIES?!” It screeches, Crispy’s ears lower in disapproval of the loud noise.
“I don’t have any cookies!” I say, backing up another step as it moves towards me again. It makes a noise that sounds awfully like a scoff before turning and picking something up, what I assume it was chomping on earlier, and when I see it I almost scream.
It’s Doom, my brother's new puppy, mauled with both of his back legs eaten. Oh god.
“What the hell did you do?!” I shriek, then a thought comes to mind, why did it eat Doom but not Crispy? Then I realize that while Crispy is all black, Doom is a pale yellow with black spots-evidently looking like…a chocolate chip cookie. The thought makes me want to throw up.
“Cookies?” It eyes Doom’s bloody corpse.
“Doom is not a cookie!” I stomp my foot. “I don’t have any cookies you…cookie monster!”
“No cookies?” It tilts its head like it's confused. “None?”
“None! Not a single one!” I take another step back.
It nods towards Doom, “Not cookie?”
I nod. “Not a cookie.”
“Cookie?” It stares at Crispy and as much as I was willing to sacrifice him earlier, I don’t really want him to become a cookie substitute for this purple cookie monster lump.
“You touch him, I’ll make you into cookies.” I lean down and pick Crispy up into my arms, who seems to relax once he’s no longer at eye level with the Cookie Monster.
“Cookies?” It stands up on its tippy toes-which looks extremely funny-in an attempt to see Crispy better.
I take another step back, towards the door. “No.”
It just steps towards me. “Yes.” It nods over and over like a child who just got asked if it wants a lollipop.
“No. You hear me? No.” I step back once more, now I can reach the handle. However It must realize that too because It bares its gums and lurches for me, but if it thinks I’m just gonna let it eat me and my favorite cat in the entire world, it clearly underestimated how much I love my Crispy.
I tear open the door and race down the stairs, the Cookie Monster right on my heels. I make it down to the kitchen and It jumps up on the island right in front of me.
“Cookies?” It hesitates. “You make cookies?”
I start to shake my head but think better of it and nod instead. “Yes.” I place Crispy down and very carefully, keeping my front facing the Cookie Monster, reach over to open the freezer. “You like cookies?”
“Cookies? Yes! Yes! Cookies! Cookies!” It bounces up and down in a way that would be cute had it not just mauled my brothers dog.
I pull out a box of raw snickerdoodle cookie dough. “Snickerdoodle?”
It shakes its head maniacally. “Cookies!”
I place the box on the counter next to me and reach in for another one, this time peanut butter. “How about peanut butter?”
“No! No! No! No! Cookies!” It scowls at the box in my hand with so much hatred I almost drop it, but manage to set it up on the counter.
“Well, I don’t know what you want!” I throw my arms up, exasperated.
“Cookies!” It says matter-of-a-factly, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, which I guess it is considering that’s all It’s been saying for the past twenty minutes.
“I know. But what TYPE!?” I shout, annoyed.
“Cookies.” It says with a shrug, an actual shrug.
And that’s the last straw. “Have 'em all then!” I yank the boxes of snicker doodle and peanut butter cookie dough off the counter and chuck them at the Cookie Monster’s head and can I just say, bullseye. The boxes hit It right between the eyes.
It stands there, slapped silly before it shrieks and launches itself at me, t-rex hands forming more of claws. I quickly reach into the freezer and grab the last box of cookie dough and whack the Cookie Monster mid-air, who grips onto the box. I drop it and jump out of the way before It can attack again.
But It’s no longer focused on me, It’s focused on the box of cookie dough. One second the Cookie Monster is sitting there on the floor, its arms wrapped around the box, next it’s ripping it apart in an attempt to get to the dough inside.
A piece of cardboard flies at me and I catch it. There's wording on it- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. I want to kick myself. Of course the Cookie Monster would want the most iconic cookie ever and to think I offered it snicker doodles. I shake my head at my ignorance.
I drop the piece of cardboard and watch as the Cookie Monster eats piece of cookie dough after piece of cookie dough.
That's when I notice something.
After each chunk of cookie dough it eats, It gets smaller. It eats like ten pieces and it’s smaller than the toaster to my right. Another two pieces and its smaller than my dad’s #1 employee mug sitting on the counter. One more and it can no longer fit whole pieces in its mouth. It has to tear them apart. And suddenly I blink and I can no longer see It.
I sigh.
Not only did it eat my brother’s dog.
It also ate all my favorite cookie dough.
Thanks for reading!
