CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:
Frequent flier coupons
One medium paperclip (not plastic coated)
One movie ticket stub
Now remember that chocolate-chip cookies are supposed to be a nice
relaxing kind of food, so the first thing you'll want to do to make them
is to go somewhere where you can kick back and relax. Ecuador is good,
so use your frequent-flier coupons to pick up a round-trip ticket
there. The stewardess will hand you a couple of bags of peanuts, but
don't eat them, since we're going to need those for the cookies.
You'll find yourself sitting next to an attractive woman who teaches
archaeology at Cornell; she'll explain that she's going to Ecuador to
try to find her father--a biochemist by trade, but he dabbles in
archaeology as a hobby--who went down there to find the lost pyramid of
Sesquichachloride, well known in archaeological circles as the fabled
storehouse of the god Valhequesal who, according to myth, rode down from
the skies on a pillar of fire bringing with him a wealth of powerful but
somewhat failure-prone magical devices that, according to the priests of
the day, were pretty darn all-around nifty.
Now her father, after examining several stone tablets depicting the god
Valhequesal, discovered that he is always shown wearing a curious
bracelet on his left wrist that looks surprisingly like a digital watch,
leading him to the conclusion that Valhequesal did actually exist, but
he was really an advanced space traveler with comparatively poor taste
in accessories, and that the lost pyramid of Sesquichachloride must
contain his spacecraft and untold other devices from his world. About
this time, the stewardess will bring by the main meal and you'll want to
be sure to save the little packets of salt and butter that come with
your meal--the woman next to you will be too worried about her father to
eat and so you'll want to take her packet of butter and go ahead and
keep her crackers too.
When you get off the plane in Ecuador, just go out to the front of the
airport and try to locate a cab. There won't be any, for some reason,
so you'll go inside to inquire about where transportation might be found
and some guy will stumble against you and when you look at him, you'll
notice that he's been stabbed in the left side and is bleeding pretty
profusely. With a weakly shaking hand, he'll thrust the key to a safety
deposit box into your hand, gasp something about "be careful of the
poison ivy" and expire messily on the floor of the terminal. You'll
decide that maybe waiting for a cab is the better part of valor and head
back outside--on the way, though, be sure to stop at the concession
stand and ask for a half-pound of chocolate chips. The clerk will
measure the appropriate amount and put it in a bag for you. Be sure
your movie ticket stub is visible in the handful of change you pull from
your pocket to pay her. She'll reach down under the counter and then
surreptitiously drop a roll of microfilm into your bag along with the
chocolate chips, then hand you the bag, saying, "On the house."
At this point, speed is of the essence--get back outside the concourse
before a swarthy man with a mustache strides up to the snack shop
holding a movie ticket stub. Moments later he and the clerk will run
out the door looking for you, just as the woman who sat next to you on
the plane drives up in her rental car and offers you a lift. Cheerfully
accept, and hop in before the man with the mustache disconnects the
safety on his gun. If all goes well, you'll both be out of the pwithhelding
lot and on your way before he has time to squeeze off more than one
shot--and he'll miss on the first one anyway and the woman driving the
car will think it was just another vehicle backfiring. She'll be kind
enough to offer to let you stay in her hotel room, but she'll need to
stop off at the bank first to take care of a little business. While
she's talking with the bank representative, you casually wander back to
the safety deposit boxes and open the one that matches the key. In it,
you'll find a fair sized paper bag containing bags of flour, sugar,
baking soda and a large bottle of calamine lotion; take this along with
the folded piece of paper lining the bottom of the safety deposit box.
Go back to the lobby just as she's getting ready to leave.
Once the two of you get back into the car and start driving, unfold the
piece of paper--it's a map leading to somewhere deep in the Ecuadorian
jungle. Look more closely at it just as your companion notices the map,
gasps, nearly runs the car off the road, and exclaims "That's my
father's handwriting!" From this point on, it's pretty
straightforward--just trek through the jungle with her for a few days,
evade the occasional drug lord and that guy with the mustache, locate
the hidden temple and descend down a long pole into its depths, and
locate the treasure room.
There'll be a large golden idol in the northwest corner with huge rubies
for eyes, a golden bowl in his lap, and a bird's nest on his head. Put
the butter from the plane into the bowl and stir until softened. Get
the gold cup to the left of the idol and add two cupfuls of sugar to the
butter, stir until creamed. And two eggs from the next, one Swiss army
knife spoonful of baking soda and two-and-a-half cups of flour, being
sure to remove the large plastic bag of cocaine that was hidden in the
bag of flour first. Mix well, add the peanuts from the flight and the
chocolate chips from the bag, pocketing the microfilmed list of drug
contacts first, and place by Swiss army knife spoonfuls onto the silver
tray propped up against the back of the idol.
Once the cookie batter is on the tray, your companion will ask to lick
the bowl, but in doing so will bump against the gold torch held in the
idol's right hand and there will be a low grinding sound as the stone
block that forms the doorway to the drug smugglers' lab slides out of
the way and you'll see her father chained to a lab table being forced to
refine drugs for the smugglers. While they're having a beautiful and
happy reunion, pick up a strange device from the outer room and bring it
into the lab where there's better light for a closer inspection. Be
sure to bring the cookie sheet too and set them next to each other on
the lab table. Your companion and her father will be trying to figure
out how to get him unchained while you note that the device in question
is clearly of extraterrestrial manufacture and appears to be some sort
of highly powerful laser cutting device--except that it shows signs of
being dropped, breaking the actuator wire and misaligning the front
partial mirror.
Tell them to be quiet for a moment as you use the fish scaling blade
from your Swiss army knife to realign the partial mirror to one quarter
wave and then unfold the paperclip, using it to reconnect the
high-voltage trigger to the laser firing mechanism. Have him stand back
while you use the high-powered laser to cut through the chain holding
him to the table and, incidentally, the wall on the other side of the
room, alerting the drug smugglers to your presence. They'll burst into
the room and one will fire a pistol at you, missing you but hitting the
laser, forcing it permanently on and cracking the rear reflector,
bathing the area--the cookies in particular--with high-energy
radiation. Now get chased around the interior of the temple for a while
and, just after the second brief romantic moment where you kiss her and
think "Gosh, for someone who's been running around the Equadorian jungle
for nearly a week, her hair's not greasy at all" the cookies should be
done.
Run back through the drug lab, grab the cookie sheet, noting that the
cooling system for the laser has failed and it's about to explode, and
run to the outer room where the three of you scale the pole with the bad
guys in hot pursuit. By the time you reach the top of the pole, the bad
guys will be halfway up it already, so uncap the bottle of calamine
lotion and pour it onto the pole, causing them to fall back into the
temple as you and your companions escape into the jungle depths just
moments before the entire secret temple explodes, destroying the drug
smuggling operation along with all the extraterrestrial artifacts.
By now the cookies should be cool enough to eat.. Enjoy. Your
companions will have a few too, wistfully sighing over the loss of so
much knowledge so senselessly, as you take another cookie and notice
that the metal sheet you baked them on has etched onto it the plans for
what appear to be some sort of space drive.
Anyway, this is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've ever tried--
I've made it dozens of times and haven't had a single bad batch yet.
Jeffro