A Christmas Mystery:
I was working late one night and came home to my apartment ready to kick off my shoes and relax for a few hours on my couch. I reached into my pants pocket, which normally held my keys, and I felt only my wallet.
Shoot. I left my keys at work. So I walked back to work to grab my keys. They were on my desk, and after grabbing them, I said “good night” to the night cleaning crew and headed home.
I walked on the sidewalk past the opposing CVS and Walgreens. I crossed the street and within one block of my apartment, a red car pulled over to the sidewalk. Inside rode a middle aged woman, blond haired and bundled in red winter clothes, and a partner in the driver seat. “Hello!” she said.
Politely, I replied, “Hi.”
“Would you like some Christmas cookies?” she asked.
Did I want Christmas cookies? Sure, who wouldn’t? But did I want them from a stranger? No.
Acting under pressure, I blurted out “sure.”
The woman smiled and shuffled around to pick a bag for me. She murmured “this one has a lot of variety.” Then she handed me an unmarked ziplock bag of cookies. I didn’t look too closely at them. “Merry Christmas!” she said, and the red car headed off, presumably to the next person that they might give Christmas cookies to.
When I got back to my apartment, I threw the cookies on the kitchen table and looked at them. They looked like Christmas cookies, but one question hung over my head:
Were these cookies safe?
On one hand, the cautious side of me remembers the childhood phrase “don’t take candy from strangers.” These were strangers. While cookies weren’t candy, I certainly saw the similarity.
On the other hand, it was three days before Christmas, and giving away cookies and radom acts of kindness seems pretty commonplace for this time of year.
I examined the cookies, looking for any trace of what might look like poison or something similar. Of course, I have no idea what poison looks like. I imagine it can look pretty much like powdered sugar. What motivation did these people have? Did they really think that people would eat cookies from a stranger? Why not give away something that I don’t have to eat? That would eliminate this problem.
I didn’t touch the cookies for the next day or so. Everyone I talked to thought that it was weird to give away cookies like this. I agreed. One friend said, “dude, in this case, I say just pay it forward.”
I thought about eating just a small bit to see what happened. In the end? I tossed them. Why? Not because I thought they were poisonous, but because I couldn’t stop wondering about them.
