Remember the best cookie you’ve ever tasted? Take that memory, multiply it a hundred times better, and that’s my blue cookie. The best part isn’t just the flavoring, however. The best part is the sparkly blue color that stains your tongue as you skim the surface of sapphire sugared crystals. Then, when you gaze at the silvery reflection of the mirror, and open your mouth, your navy blue tongue slithers in and out just like my favorite animal: the blue-tongued skink.
Just in case you’ve never heard of a skink, by definition, a skink is any of numerous lizards of the family Scincidae, common in many regions of the Old and New World, typically having flat, smooth, overlapping scales and comprising terrestrial, arboreal, and fossorial species. Basically, it’s a lizard sort of thing. It’s definitely bigger than the small garden lizards that keep me entertained in my backyard, but smaller than the crazy komodo dragons that you see on the moving pictures. The moving pictures with Mickey Mouse and Minnie are my favorites. Scratch that, the Little Mermaid vocalizing her sweet chorales are the best! But getting back to my point…

While savoring my cerulean paradise, not only do my silly mother and father laugh at me, but also take a picture! Why do they treasure my heaven of sweetness? Why do they bother to capture a moment in time where all is bliss? It makes no difference to me. As the bright spots from the flash recede, I sink my teeth into another section of my saccharine confection and rip out a doughy portion. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Another bite, another nibble, another mouthful, another morsel of my scrumptious cookie. Oh! Too much! My pudgy fingers snatch my dangerously filled to the brim cup of milk, spilling the pearly liquid all over the tablecloth. Whoops! If only my mother had realized that I didn’t mean to, and that I just needed to escape the sweetened ecstasy that had, momentarily, become too much, then maybe she would’ve been a bit calmer when scolding me for my insolence. If she hadn’t filled it to the very top, the soaked fabric never would have happened. As I stared at the powdered crystals on my cookie, she grumbled about her imbecilic child while she peeled the tablecloth away.

I shoved that last fragment into my gnawing mouth, my canines cleaving the candied concoction apart. Might as well enjoy the cookie rather than listen to mommy’s haranguing. Observing that I was finished, however, my mommy told me to wipe up the rest of my mess. My mess? She was the one who poured it so full. I knew better than to retort. That would create a never-ending dilemma. And that is not something I craved.

I took the fluffy cloth and rubbed the wood table, cleaning up after “my” mess. All for that blue cookie. I swear I won’t forget that. And now, looking back, I never did.