This is the top of the tree, sitting on our deck.
So, during a West Seattle storm, a couple of trees visited the side of our house the other night…..no big deal. We are safe. Thanks for asking. We also had some other visitors the next day…….big deal. Our neighbor, all of six years of age, along with her mother, all of an age she won’t disclose, rang our doorbell the day after the storm. They were attempting to sell us cookies. That is the perfect storm: Trees colliding into our house followed by ladies peddling cookies. Thank God they didn’t show up with a Bible. Noah may dispute this, but that would have become the perfect Biblical Storm.
While negotiating our deductible with our insurance agency, I was also knee deep with cookie negotiations with our six year old neighbor, Peanut. She wasn’t concerned with our house dangerously close to being crushed by large trees. She wanted to make a sale. Upon opening her catalog of pastries, impatient man that I am, I yanked out a twenty dollar bill hidden in my wallet and said, “Take this, and get the hell out of here.” That’s not quite the way I said it. I thought twenty dollars would suffice when buying cookies from a six year old. Not so fast. Peanut had to read 
my wife the cookie guide provided by her school, evidently guiding her to not settle for twenty dollars when dealing with a man and a one thousand dollar deductible on a house. Peanut had a thirty two dollar deductible on her cookies. My wife pulled out the check book and we quickly settled. In the process, since we were more concerned with the worthy cause of making her school a better place to ignore teachers, we really weren’t too concerned with the type of cookies, or in this case, “Dough” we were purchasing. Shrewd business girl as she is, after Peanut turned down my twenty dollar bill, I decided to find the proper thirty two dollars worth of cookies she was selling. Quickly, she pointed at the cookies she wanted. Bright and impatient man that I am, I asked her, “Who are we buying these for, you or us?” Her smile only made us smile. However, after inquiring and reading further pages, we weren’t purchasing cookies, only cookie dough. I was pleased to sign the check for thirty two bucks. Asking who to write the check out to, Peanut’s mother replied, “Oh, just sign it out to me”. My wife and I thought that was sarcastically funny. However, that dough is going directly into Peanut and her mother’s oven. If we’re paying for this, someone else is going to bake it.
When leaving our house, and darkness was securing our neighborhood, Peanut’s mother asked us a very important question: “How late is it too late to sell cookie dough to the rest of our neighbors?” Our response: “Now…..Now is too late.”
We can’t wait for Peanut and her mother to return with freshly baked goods.
