Cookies ...Part 1

Some backstory that you need to know.

I worked in an industry where there were only 4 companies in the world that did what they did. I worked for 1 of the 4 at the time. I was downsized because 2 companies merged. You know how fun those mergers are on all of the employees being merged.
It was the late 1980s.

I was not dating Rick at the time, he was just my best friend. I called him one evening crying because I only had enough money left to get me through one more month. He sent me money to pay my rent. But the next month was the same and he suggested I come back to my hometown where he lived and move in with him. He said, “It’d be cheaper” until I got another job. So I did. I moved into the 2nd bedroom and continued to pound the pavement for work. Not with much luck though and not with the blessing of his girlfriend.

Rick was in advertising at the time and his company was closing its doors.
He came home and told me he only had a few weeks left to work. I was shocked.
In the meantime I had taken 2 low paying jobs, one in retail and another low paying job that was horrific but necessary until I could get work again in my field. But things didn’t work out as planned. We both were struggling and it wasn’t much fun.

One day we were both home after work at the same time, which was so rare, and we were opening the bills at the dining room table. He said while holding the cable bill, “We could cancel cable and go have some margarita’s with the money in my pocket OR we can continue to keep cable. What do you think?” I said, “Let’s go drink and screw the cable bill.”
So we did just that.

We drank and discussed my frustrations of the constant interviewing. I was flying to this city or that city for interviews and thinking it went well only to find out as I walked out that there were 4 or 5 former co-workers in the lobby waiting to interview for the same position. We were all qualified. The more margarita’s we had the more we felt we should be able to think of doing something to control our own destiny.
We felt we were smart people. “I might as well be poor working for myself than working 2 low income jobs for someone else.”
That is what foggy margarita brain will do to you - you think you're brilliant!

Somehow we started discussing making cookies. We had seen at this point cookie bouquets and honestly they tasted like crap and they were really feminine like long stem roses.
We thought if we could be making something that appealed to all genders, ages and that tasted good.  No, really great, it would be a hit.
The more margarita’s the more clever we thought we became.

Hey I said, “What about HUGE cookies on sticks blooming right out of coffee mugs, wrapped in different colored saran wrap and we could cut the sticks at varying lengths to look like a bouquet?”  You could have the mug filled up with curly colorful ribbon to hide the sticks. You could have a showroom of mugs for men, women, children, sports, risqué etc. The more we drank the better our ideas became to us. By the time we were heading home I was coming up with names. I said one name as we pulled into the drive way and he said, “Wow that is a dumb name.” (remember that point)

Now you have to remember this was before cookie bouquets and all the things we have today. Nothing was like this in any city we lived in at the time.

The next morning we saw the bar napkin on our table and we began more discussions.
We both looked at our notes that we jotted down. We discussed this stone cold sober and still thought it was a great idea. So we began experimenting with recipes and hitting the library for business info. 

Remember this was the 1980s and no internet to speak of.  We went to the big gorgeous downtown city library and did our homework on registered trademarks, corporations, licenses etc. We spent hours going through phone books from all over the U.S. to see if there were companies like this. I admit I so loved this library. So all the time we spent there was actually fun for me. (Architecturally alone this building is so spectacular and so much better than the square boxes that are non descript of today)

We went through book after book on the laws and what we needed to start a business.
We spent every free moment in the library. It was a wealth of information. One day there was an attorney there that saw us looking through some legal information on registered trademarks and asked us some questions. When we told him what we were doing he laughed and said, “Good for you! I’m glad that everyone doesn’t know this or we wouldn’t have jobs.” 

He even took the time to give us some free advice and told us we didn’t need him. That made us feel great but if we could have afforded someone else to do all this believe me, we so would have. It was a lot of work!

While we were doing all this homework to start our own business we both got jobs that were horrible but worked for us and paid well. 

It was advertising for the yellow pages. Again today there are no yellow pages are there?
Horrible jobs, but one does what one has to do.
It allowed us the hours we needed and the money was good so we felt it would work so we could continue to get a business off the ground. We worked alone and drove from customer to customer so that was an advantage as you’ll see later.

In the evenings we’d bake. Well I should say Rick would bake. It was difficult to get a cookie as large as we wanted to be moist with a crunchy edge and yet still be able to stand up on a stick. The cookies were about 5/6 inches wide/circular. We did not want a dry cookie. It was imperative that the cookie be moist and delicious. Anyone could do this but to do this well would be the thing that would make us. We were certain of that.

....to be continued.