The Way It Crumbles

There were none at Ikea (actually there were some but they were so large that they were for gingerbread, not cookies). There were none at the Bangsar Village Grocer. There were none at the swanky House of Presentation (the nice Indian girl said, aiyo, so many customers have been coming to ask, so I called the boss who said they discontinued the linelar, try Bangsar Grocer, can?) There were none at Bangsar Shopping. And only very tacky ones at TMC.

Ugh, whatever happened to cookie cutters? They should have been simple enough to find. I even called them by their Malay name "acuan biskut" and still, no cigar. When did Malaysians cease to bake cookies? Or better still, did they evah?

I wrestled with the ancient question:

To bake, or not to bake,
that is the question,
whether tis nobler in the mind
to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous cookie-cutterless fortune
or take arms against a sea of troubles
and by Opposing,
END THEM?

A conundrum, indeed. How was I supposed to take arms against this sea of troubles, to say nothing of ending them, when I couldn't find a cookie cutter for love or gold or a princely ransom?

Not to worry. I hired a superhero. Or actually, I confided my troubles to a superhero. My friend, Mary Zack. She put the word out on her supersonic radar and immediately, an answer made its way through the stratosphere...."try PJ Old Town. Got lot of shops with kitchen stuff there. Very cheap oso!"

She texted me. I leapt three feet, charged with some of her bionic powers, transmitted over the mobile.

PJ Old Town was grotty. Not to worry. Grotty is as grotty does. But were there cookie cutters? Or acuan biskut here?

First shop: Same tacky plastic ones as in TMC.

Second shop. More of the same. And some of those thingamajigs that you use for tarts. Or tat, as it is apparently known in Malay.

We traipsed from shop to shop recoiling at the miserable selection. Yes, they had it. But really, ugh!

The final shop. Cookie cutters (from Europe, because they had German words on the cover). Only circles. OK, what the heck, who needs Christmas trees anyway, right? I mean circles, they are practical. Yes, yes. So OK I bought them. The nice thing about PJ Old Town is that you never pay what's on the price tag. You're expected to bargain. So RM7.80 meant RM5. We pointed out to nice Indian guy who looked dubious when I said RM5, that the item had not moved in years, as was evidenced by the five layers of dust on plastic cover. He shrugged philosophically and gave me my change.

The mission was a success. Sort of. It was time to fortify ourselves with curry puffs and teh tareks at Jalan Gasing. (All in the neighbourhood, what?) We ate and ate and ate and watched the youngsters who congregated there. Sort of a who's who. The up and comers. Also some oldies who think they are up and comers. I mean I saw the former group editor. With another former group editor. With a group of young lackeys. Probably plotting the overthrow of present management of various newspapers. We nodded as we passed and he smiled and spoke to Mary. I was invisible but it made me no never mind.

So now I have everything and my life is perfect and I could actually embark on cookie baking frenzy I think I will go to sleep.

What can I say?

That's the way the cookie crumbles...