Booger cookies

In the first Harry Potter book, Albus Dumbledore laments his poor luck with Bernie Bott's every flavor beans, before tasting a bean that proves to be ear wax-flavored. Harry is amused, but grateful that he avoided both the ear-wax bean and the booger-flavored one that Fred and George once found, at least according to the possibly too-gullible Ron Weasley. I still feel a mild thrill of horror when I see the Bernie Boots blend of Jelly-Belly gourmet beans featuring those flavors. After all, don’t parents spend a lot of time acculturating their children not to eat these substances?

(left) Bernie Bott's "every flavor beans" Picture by Coolmallu. Used under Gnu License.

I prevented a friend from eating what I termed a “booger cookie” in public the other day. Perhaps this was unfair, but cookies do have empty calories and the aforementioned cookies were out in public in close proximity to children who potentially had boogers on their hands.

Don’t get me wrong....

Children can be quite cute, especially other people’s children when they are all dressed up cutely for purposes of travel and fun. And there is no better place to see cute children dressed for travel and fun than in the lounge/breakfast area of a Best Western or Hampton Inn or other similar type of hotel chain after a big event, like a wedding. Often these chains do fun special things, like give candy to children who are checking out that day, or leave cookies and coffee out in the lobby all day and night for the occasional snacker.

(Right) Plateful of cookies. Image by meniscus (is that not the coolest personal moniker?). Image used under Gnu license.

Personally, I think this is a nice touch. It gives a homey feeling and shows the guest that the hotel chain cares. And then the guest is less fussy about things like the accidental dirty towel left in the bathroom or the mildew on the soap dish—this is almost impossible to keep up with in the dead heat of summer in older buildings despite strong evidence of continual cleaning and really frequent regrouting. So, at least one hapless soul is going to see a teeny bit of mildew on a soap dish at some point before the regrouting people have a chance to get in and fix the problem.

And I found the cookies working for me the other night when I checked into a hotel chain place in one of the red states and found not only a dirty towel but also a spot of mildew on the soap dish in the shower. Instead of thinking “eew, gross,” the way I may have, I thought “at least it isn’t a giant killer roach,” and I know it was as a result of the cookies and coffee.

Not that I would actually eat the cookies. I’ve seen children looking really really cute in their outfits in public places and then forgetting that the nose is not to be cleaned in public (at least according to authorities like their Moms), and then reaching into the cookie bin without a napkin. And then, some of then also forget not to touch every single cookie before making a selection. Yuck.