Chubby Bunny Cookies

When I was a 17 year old punk I once went to a Young Men's activity where we played a wonderful little game called "Chubby Bunnies". We had two large bags of giant marshmallows, and the object of the game was to put a marshmallow in your mouth and say the sentence "I am a chubby bunny". Whoever could say the sentence coherently with the most marshmallows stuffed in his pie hole was the winner. After about 5 a piece, things started to get....slobbery. The Young Men's leader had a wife who had a thing about teenagers drooling on her carpet (there's no accounting for taste), and provided us with a cookie sheet to catch drippings and expectorated marshmallow goo.

When we got done we had this incredibly disgusting tray of ooze. Someone (It wasn't me) got the brilliant idea of turning it into Marshmallow Crispy Treats. This was the extent of our baking prowess at the time, most of us having spent the semester of home-ec that is required to learn to make Orange Julius and Marshmallow Crispy Treats.

Once we got started, though, it was (as all church related youth activities tend to be) all downhill from there. The inevitable dare, double dare and triple dog dare insult matches took place until someone (I'm not going to say it wasn't me) got the clever and amusing idea of taking them to the church where the Young Women were meeting. "They'll never expect it, 'cause they aren't brownies!" said an anonymous moron (who may or may not have been me). No youth in Utah would eat a brownie back in the ancient days of my youth as someone had discovered you could make them with chocolate ExLax. We were a little meaner back in the pre-political correctness days.

Now this wasn't entirely as mean spirited as it sounds. Looking back, I think it was a really pathetic attempt at flirtation. You know, show them how clever we could be, demonstrate our domestic skills, (good thing I practiced those, huh?), let them see our thoughtfulness, that sort of thing. Come to think of it, it now makes sense why none of the ward girls wanted much to do with us.

Our wet blanket leader heard our devious plot and put the immediate kaibosh to it. He threw them away, making them at the same time both more unavailable and more desirable to give as "gifts". I still wonder if we'd have gotten away with it if we'd just....

Never mind. The reason I retell this saga of lost youth is that today is baking day! We made peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses smashed into 'em. Now Bub has a peanut allergy. It gives him what the Chinese call "hot stomach". And the last thing in the universe that I need right now is to be potty training a child with "hot stomach". So Bub was not allowed anywhere in the vicinity of the dough. Instead I put him to work "peeling" the Kisses of their foil wrappers. After a moment of supervision to make sure he had it down, I went back to mixing dough.

When I checked up on him a minute later, I caught him popping a kiss into his mouth.

"Don't eat that!" I hollered. "Those are for the cookies!"

Being a diligent and obedient tot he pulled it back out of his mouth and attempted to drop it back into the bowl of peeled kisses.

"Argghh!" I said, eloquently stating my feelings as I snatched the bowl away. I checked the bowl for soggy Kisses and found none; but the point is (and I know I have disappointed my favorite Auntie) that I can't be entirely certain that these cookies have not been "Chubby Bunnied".

I'm sorry. Bub is sorry too. But we will make it up to you soon. I'll start right now by not writing a joke that is both really funny and really gross, even though I want to and that way I won't ruin your appreciation of these delicious cookies.

Now I've got to go, the boys just found a bag of large marshmallows. I'm not kidding. I wish I were.