Chocolate Covered What?!

M.O.M. is not above recruitment and I started my tutelage at an early age.  Sure there were the little minor incidents of Experiments in Devious Conducts of Humor, like convincing a sibling that there were a few fish missing from the 50 gallon aquarium in our kitchen while we were eating fish sticks, but that is kids stuff.  No, the real deal happened in the winter of my eleventh year.

It was Christmas time, and we were sitting around the kitchen table baking our beloved chocolate covered cherry cookies and listening to Frank Zappa warble about broken hearts being for individuals of a specific nature.  My preteen mind elicited a giggle as I began to roll the chocolate dough into an elongated ball.  I held it up for my heavily pregnant M.O.M. to examine.
“Look!  A cat turd!”

Now most mothers would scoff or roll their eyes at this immature behavior, but most mothers are not M.O.Ms.  Her eyes lit up and I watched that familiar smile spread across her lips.  Her response was delightful to my young ears.

“Let’s bake some like that!”

So as Frank crooned in the background, we baked a pile of cat turds.  After they had cooled they so closely resembled real cat turds, that even the cat would not have known the difference.  We took our freshly baked treasure up to my older sister’s bedroom. 

Now, Nelly was never known for being the brightest bulb in the package, and has always had a flare for the over dramatic.  So it would come as no surprise that she would be a perfect mark for an Experiment in Devious Conducts of Humor.  She had long been my tormentor so I was thrilled with the idea of getting some sweet, sweet revenge.  Our unsuspecting cat and I watched M.O.M. arrange the pile on Nelly’s pillow.  With much giggling and snorting, we exited the room and pulled the door closed behind us, leaving our innocent little pussy cat behind.  

A few hours later, when Nelly arrived home from a date, we followed her up to her room as she prattled on about her latest crush.  I never heard a word she said, and I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing out loud as she passed the bed and the pile multiple times without ever seeing it.  After a few agonizing minutes, she looked down, and the sound that came out of her could only be replicated in the deepest parts of the Amazon rainforest. 

As if on cue, the cat raced from under the bed and shot out the door.  Unexpectedly, Nelly followed close behind and half slid, half ran down the stairs.  M.O.M. yelled down the stairs after her, “Don’t kill the cat! Just get me some paper towels and I’ll clean it up!”

If Nelly had been paying attention, the gig would have been up, as M.O.M. would never have reacted so calmly to the cat defecating on the bed, but as I said before, Nelly wasn’t known for her powers of reason.  She returned to her room, half hysterical, half blinded by rage with a fist full of Brawny.  What happened next has become the stuff of legends in our family.

M.O.M. picked up one of the gruesome confections with the paper towel, and careful inspected it.  She held it up said “Something doesn’t look right.”  Then to the shock and horror of Nelly, she sniffed it.  As I watched with captivated admiration, Nelly watched with horrified disbelief, as M.O.M. took a bite of the cat turd. 

Remember that sound I said came from her when she saw the pile?  Well, she made it again, then bolted to the bathroom and locked herself inside screaming how she was NEVER going to get pregnant, EVER!  I’m not sure how long it took us to convince her that the turds were really cookies, but she never did see the humor in it.  We’ve served cat turd cookies in our home a few times since then and along with the milk, partakers of the cookie will receive a story they’ll never forget.