Ding Dong Cookies?

Millenia ago when I was a teenager, one of my friends was diagnosed with cancer.  Shortly after that happened I was having a sleepover with my best friend and in our sleep-deprived sugar craziness we decided the best way to encourage him was to deliver cookies.

At 3 in the morning.

So, after drinking way too much Dr Pepper and watching some truly ridiculous movies and probably eating way more of that cookie dough than we should have. We packaged up the cookies.

In brown paper with packing tape all over it.

And wrote

“Tick

Tick

Tick

This is not a bomb”

on it.

Then we left it at 3 in the morning on the doorstep and congratulated ourselves on a brilliant job of encouraging our friend.

The next morning his Dad opened the door to go get the newspaper.

Yes kids, back when I was a kid people still got a newspaper delivered to them everyday, we didn’t get our news on the internet.

Back then the internet went SKREEE!

This was in the days of the Unabomber, and his Dad was former navy, so he saw the package and thought, “Oh no, someone has delivered a mail bomb to our house.” He promptly took the package and dropped it in the pool in their backyard.

As the package of cookies sunk to the bottom of the pool, his wife said, “Oh Vern, that was probably for Aaron.”

They fished the now soaking wet package out of the pool, and thanks to the massive amounts of tape and plastic bags, the cookies were fine.

They happily ate the cookies, and a few decades later that story is still told every now and then by his parents, and by my husband who finds the story hilarious.

The kids and I are delivering cookies again

Very important, our current quarantine rules say you can deliver food, and we are not interacting with anyone and are washing our hands thoroughly before, during, and after this entire process. Do not do this if your local area is not allowing this. Now back to the story.

With the quarantine and everyone going crazy right now, we’re delivering cookies again.

In keeping with the times and the fact that most people no longer open their front door every day to go get the newspaper, and that I don’t really want my kids up at 3 in the morning.

Trust me that would make everyone unhappy.

 

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#coronaquarantine encouragement, delivering cookies

A post shared by Ticia (@ticiam) on Mar 24, 2020 at 1:12pm PDT

Instead, we are delivering them in the middle of the afternoon, ringing the doorbell and running. While wearing capes (skip the first 20 seconds of the video, for some reason it recorded that).

Capes make everything better.

In a nice version of Ding Dong Ditch.

We’ve been leaving the “Do Not Fear” verse cards, a dozen cookies, and notes. I’ve printed off like 20 copies of those verses.

We even made some rice krispie treats for our gluten free friends.

The important thing is we are delivering encouragement, and making sure we maintain quarantine by not interacting.

Then we drive around ringing doorbells, listening to the first book of the Dark is Rising sequence (we’re almost done with it! The kids didn’t remember it from when they read it years ago), and laughing like crazy as we try to sneak off before they answer the door.

We haven’t really been very successful at that part yet.

Oh and we are making sure to sign our notes because right now it’s not like anyone is going to eat cookies anonymously left at their door.

Okay, teen boys probably would.

I wouldn’t.

The reactions to our encouragement cookies

Y’all everyone loves them.

I’ve gotten texts and Facebook messages saying how it made their day.

My kids are getting hilarious messages from their friends.

 

This isn’t just a quarantine thing

We actually have done this other times. It’s usually been a bit more organized though.

Like we’ve brought meals to friends with new babies or after funerals. We’ve delivered packages of letters and cookies, all manner of stuff.

I’m sure once my kids are a hair older and having more random sleepovers, they’ll be delivering cookies to their friends in the middle of the night.

It’s a time honored tradition, and one I’ll be happy to keep going.

All right, in the time I’ve been writing this, I’ve now watched 3 random videos, looked at loads of ridiculous memes, and generally been unable to focus, anyone else struggling with that right now?

More Random fun you can engage in with your kids

Yeah, I’m totally punting this, and I’ll come up with it later. I feel the need to go watch something pointless and get off the computer for a bit.

Seriously y’all, focus is non-existent right now. I’ll try and add in pictures later of our actual cookies, but that first batch turned out weird looking. They tasted fine, but looked weird.