If city council candidates’ ads that don’t say much more than “I’m a functioning adult — vote for me” leave you wondering if s/he is the greatest thing since Yelp or somewhere south of a rainy day on the beach, you’re not alone. I wonder, too.
But, baking chocolate chip cookies the other day, it occurred to me that clues were in my oven at that very moment.
Like Moab’s own Robert Fulghum, in his classic “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” how one goes about baking cookies tells you a lot about human behavior, what they might do or not do on council.
And being a politician myself, I can tell you that they are human; I don’t care what anybody says in the newspapers.
So, here’s a multiple choice quiz for candidates. Answers shall be discussed at forthcoming KZMU or LWV debates, which god knows certainly could use a little more life.
1. Do you eat chocolate chip cookies?
A) No, chips go better with beer.
B) Yes, I get high on the caffeine.
C) No, I’m trying to lose 20 pounds.
D) Yes, I’m still hungry after tomato bisque soup and arugula.
E) Are you kidding? Sugar is poison.
2. Have you ever made chocolate chip cookies from scratch?
A) I watch Fox, she does the cooking.
B) My mother never taught me how.
C) No, I buy Pepperidge Farm cookies from Costco.
D) Yes, once when I was trying to impress my BF/GF.
E) Yes — what a rip, Pepperidge Farm cookies.
3. Do you ask your family what kind of cookie they want? Maybe somebody wants coconut almond cookies instead.
A) No way — they can make their own dang coconut almond.
B) Yes, but I’ll make whatever I want anyway.
C) Yes, and make it, even if my therapist told me I need to be more assertive.
4. What’s the first thing you do?
A) Ask your wife for help.
B) Eat chocolate chips right out of the bag.
C) Discover you’re missing most of the ingredients.
D) Wash the dishes left over from last night.
E) Start streaming Classic Rock.
5. Do you follow the directions exactly?
A) Nah. Real men don’t need no stinkin’ directions.
B) Yes, unless it means a trip to the grocery store.
C) Yes. To fail to plan is to plan to fail.
D) No. Great things, like Teflon, come from mistakes.
6. Do you measure things precisely?
A) Yes, even if I have to wash a flock of measuring spoons and cups. I never did understand fractions.
B) Yes. I strive for perfection.
C) No, not if it won’t make no never mind. Be free.
7. When someone suggests a recipe alteration, say pecans, claimed to turn ordinary into fabulous cookies, do you:
A) Politely decline, being uncomfortable with something you’re not familiar with.
B) Take the credit yourself.
C) Research in Wikipedia any potential side effects of pecans.
D) Enthusiastically credit your source on Facebook.
8. Do you offer fresh-out-of the-oven cookies?
A) Are you serious? I got six kids — the cookies would vaporize before the oven cools.
B) As if there were anybody at home to offer them to. You have any idea how hard it is to find the right man/woman around this town?
C) I took a couple to work and offered them to this girl, hoping she’d be impressed I can cook. Eating french fries, said she was on a diet. Don’t think she was … impressed.
9. If you burn the cookies, you:
A) Blame the thermostat and the timer.
B) Resolve not to watch Netflix while you’re cooking.
C) Open the back door until the smoke alarm stops beeping, then make a new batch, telling no one.
D) As in the above answer, but text all your friends about your grand misadventure.
Mike Duncan is a city council member who really does make chocolate chip cookies when he’s not marveling at the beauty and absurdity in human nature.
