Oreos

Last night I had an existential moment... with an Oreo cookie. I know that is a bit unusual but I don't think you get to pick and choose when to have these kinds of moments. But before we discuss this existential moment we will take a step back and look at the path leading up to this moment.

Since my last post I have been doing a lot of nothing. Not to say I've been idle, but I'm not moving in any particular direction. I'm in a hibernation period. Waiting for my next job to start and enjoying my time living off of my summertime fat. This consists of a large amount of alone time mix with adventure. Whether those be inside adventures (video games) or outside adventures (climbing, hiking, fishing) I have a lot of time to myself. I have a simple life, but even with my level of simplicity there is plenty to mull over. Is the snow going to be good this winter? How long am I going to be here? How is my money situation during my unemployed time? An idle mind comes up with all sorts of crazy ideas. But I have been in SLC for almost two weeks, two fun weeks, but occasionally I get the travel jitters to move just for the sake of moving. Sure enough, my dad calls me up and asks if I want to come home. Mind as well, I'm not really doing anything here and during the week my main squeeze is busy at school. So next morning I'm at the airport and on the plane home. Reunion. Family is excited, I'm excited, good food and hugs all around. Fast forward to the evening. Everyone else has gone to bed and I'm the last one awake with the tv buzzing quietly in the background. What to do before I go to bed? I saw some Oreos in the pantry earlier... bedtime snack for sure! So I pour myself a glass of milk, settle in my chair with the package of Oreos ready at my side. Cookie number one. Dip in milk, bite cookie and savor the flavor. A classic bedtime snack. Oreos two and three are just as delicious, but instead of dipping and savoring I'm dunking and devouring. I can't even remember the last time I had an Oreo. Four, five and six all go down in a similar fashion. I realize I'm getting a little out of hand. Just one more cookie I tell myself. I reach into the package and pull out Oreo number seven. The fated seventh cookie. As my fingertips graze the delicious morsel it feels different than the average Oreo. "What the?" I look down at it and sure enough this little guy has been made backwards. Smooth side of the cookie out. What an interesting little flaw. I've never seen this in any of the thousands of Oreos I've

eaten before. Or maybe I've just never noticed until now... and then I got to thinking. This is amazing. Unusual. Different. I daresay I was intrigued. I did some research on Oreos and they have a long history that begins in 1912. But the most curious thing is the name. Where did it come from? "Oreo?" From everything I could find the origin of the name is unknown, but many believe it comes from the Greek word "oreo" which means beautiful. And this little Oreo was beautiful in it's own way. It lives in a world of perfection. Every Oreo made exactly the same way. Broken Oreos, malformed Oreos, and all the other misfit Oreos never make it into a package. I assume that they all just go into a cookie pit of despair where they are ground up and turned into some kind of delicious Oreo powder. But THIS Oreo persevered! He made it past all of the sensors, the watching eyes of the Nabisco production line (both human and mechanical) and made it out into the world! Even though this Oreo looked different, it was flipped, a little off kilter, it still had the gumption to get in that Oreo package. It would not be sent away to the Oreo dust graveyard. It stood up and screamed, "I'm an Oreo! I may not be as perfect as the others! I may not have equal sides! But I will be the Oreo you deserve!" This little Oreo was a warrior. A revolutionary. He would not sit idly by in a world where only the best of Oreos get to fulfill the dreams of cookie lovers. He was truly one of a kind in a world of replication and repetition. And I'll be damned if that was the best Oreo that I've ever had the pleasure of eating.