The Parable Of The Fine Restaurant And Magic Cookie Jar
Once not so very long ago, in a place much like this, lived a family who looked forward every week to dining at a fine restaurant. Such care over the menu! Such surprising ingredients and combinations, fruits and vegetables from many countries, and main dishes—fish from far oceans, and meats from farms that the family hadn’t known were right in their neighborhood.
“Not only is every meal here tasty and nutritious,” the husband said. “But we always learn something.”
“It’s well worth the money,” his wife agreed.
“So much effort,” the little boy said, and pulled at his little tie. Because, since it wasn’t every day that the family went out to the fine restaurant, and because the restaurant cost money, it was important to dress up.
“I like it,” the little girl said. She wasn’t sure if what she liked was dressing up, or that they only went out once a week, or what she ate. When she thought about them, she couldn’t tell these things apart.
Then one evening the father came home with a cookie jar. “It’s going to change everything,” he said.
A cord came out of the bottom of the cookie jar and plugged into the wall. The cord connected the jar to any cookie jars anywhere in the world that also had cords connected to them, and if you opened the jar there would always be cookies, no matter how many you had eaten.
“Just like television,” the children’s mother said. “You’ll have to take turns, and you can only have so many cookies a day.”
Since the cookie jar was in the living room, the family had to share. But since it was so easy to reach in for cookies, and always the jar was full, they found they often had no appetite by dinnertime, until, one week, the boy asked if maybe they didn’t have to go to the fine restaurant.
“I get all I need from cookies,” he said.
The mother and father thought about this. The restaurant was expensive. And it was so much effort to dress up.
“We’ll try it,” the father decided.
“We can always go back,” the wife said.
As more people bought cookie jars, they became less expensive, until one day the father and mother announced that the boy and girl could each have jars in their bedrooms. Such bliss! Any time of day or night. Because the jars were connected to other jars all over the world, they never knew what might turn up—coconut cookies, sugar cookies, cinnamon and spice, jam and raisin, and all bite-sized, all so easily swallowed and digested without even a fork or plate or napkin.
“Or coat or tie,” the boy said.
Soon there were cookie jars at school. At work, the mother and father had cookie jars, and when they came home, the cookie jar was the first place they went. And in the morning, before they even got out of bed. So easy!
“Remember having to wait for the next course?” the wife said.
“And how expensive the restaurant was,” the husband said. “Of course it had to be, with a chef and waiters to pay.”
“Still,” the wife said. She’d liked getting dressed up. And there was something different about eating a three-course meal than eating cookies. She knew it all got digested the same way, but it seemed important, somehow, the way she received it.
“I paid more attention in the restaurant,” she said. “The plates were so beautiful. You knew that someone had taken time with them.”
“Of course you knew,” the husband said. “Remember the bills?”
“But can you imagine a hollandaise cookie?” the wife said. “Or a grilled salmon cookie? A hot potato and leek cookie?”
“We can always go back,” the husband said.
The next week they got dressed up. The husband had to drag the son away from the cookie jar in his room and tie his tie for him, because the boy had forgotten how. The girl tore her stockings in her excitement to get her nice shoes on. In the car, in the dark, the lights of shops and houses passed, warm and yellow, and the family thought about sitting down at the restaurant, and the hot crusty bread in little baskets and the coarse napkins folded over to keep it warm.
“I hope they have duck,” the boy said.
“And crab cakes,” the girl said.
“I bet you could make a crab cake cookie,” the boy said.
“Could not.”
“Could.”
“Children!” the mother said. “You’re too young for crabs anyway.”
The car pulled into the restaurant parking lot. But the restaurant windows were unlit, the door boarded over, the parking lot empty. A sign on the door read, “We appreciate your many years of loyalty. It was a pleasure serving you.”
“But we weren’t loyal,” the girl said.
“It wouldn’t have made sense to keep going here,” the father said. “Not when cookies are free.”
“But who makes the cookies?” the girl said. “Someone must get paid to make the cookies.”
“Of course they do,” the mother said.
The father turned around in the parking lot and pulled out into traffic, headed back home. So many headlights, all on their way to somewhere. The girl wondered what the people in the passing cars were wearing. She’d always loved that about the restaurant, looking over at other tables.
“Who makes the cookies?” she said.
No one answered. They were driving fast now, and with the cars passing it was loud and her voice was soft and the father and son were thinking about what cookies they’d have when they got home.
