Free Food. We all like the sound of “free” attached to other words, but “free food” tends to interest college students quite a bit. In this case, it was free cookies.
We were given a box of 12 packs of cookies. Plain and simple. Our mission: to give out free cookies where no one had before. But seriously, our goal was to give out free cookies. I ripped open the box of Scooby Snacks and headed over to the activities fair.
It was pouring pretty heavily outside and the number of students walking on campus was pretty small. I hid my box close to my body so that it wouldn’t get soaked, but there wasn’t a soul around to offer cookies to.
After reaching the student center, which is off of Peters Ave, I headed inside to the Yockey room. It was furnished with tables in a U-shape along three walls, with more tables in the center. There were people at the tables talking about their organizations. I set my opened box next to our Alpha Lamba Delta sign and sat in the plastic maroon chair.
There were few people milling about, but Professor John Helms approached my table. I said,
“Good morning Professor Helms. Or afternoon, I guess. I don’t know anymore. do you want some cookies or a glow stick?” He looked at me like I was crazy, then shrugged and said,
“I’m walking around and collecting lunch right now, so I guess I’ll take some cookies.” He picked up one of the purple pouches and dropped it into a plastic cup he was holding. He smiled as he did so, looking up from the cup that now held his cookies. He didn’t look at me like I was crazy anymore but as a normal student.
We’re all crazy though, I guess.
The rain outside stopped a lot of students from coming in, so my box sat untouched for a while. Finally, one student was beyond excited to be offered cookies.
“I’ll just take one…box!” He said as he grabbed the whole thing. His black hair fell in front of his eyes and covered his darker skin as he laughed.
“No, um please just take one,” I stated.
“I know that they are basically our childhood, but don’t take them all. That’s rude,” Grace Russman said. She was laughing a bit too as she sat next to me but made sure he knew that he could only take one. He did, but he looked back at the box as he walked away.
Few people told me no outright, some said yes but then changed their mind when they say the cookie type, and I even had people like Tony Michalski who got way too into the whole “free” idea. Michalski took two during class and threw one at a kid and yelled “Baldy Award!” Not too sure what that means, but he sure enjoyed the free aspect.
All in all, free cookies are easy to give away. They are welcome in the “free food” community around college students and the questions of “do you want some free cookies?” was nearly always met with
“Heck yeah! I love free cookies.”
The only thing better than free cookies is free pizza (and maybe free donuts). Reilly’s commentt about the Tony story could have been fixed with a sentence; just transition the action to the classroom. Some good dialogue. Stay open to sensory detail.
Mari, your cookies story is very well-written. You wrote a very detailed story about handing out cookies at the activities fair. But, you started to skip around at the end with Tony Michaels story. It made me confused on where the story’s direction was. I would’ve left that part out. The ending paragraph is a perfect way to end your article.