What in the World are
Cookies?
Liz Kollar
Until recently cookies were the delicious baked
confections I ate before I went to bed at night along
with my cup of coffee, the "forbidden fruit" of
a wayward dieter.
I used to bake enough cookies at Christmastime
that they lasted until Valentine’s day, stored in
boxes and plastic containers, covered with red and green
sprinkles or decorated like snowmen and Christmas trees
thick with luscious icing and colored sugar. My cookies
never got old or stale because they were so irresistibly
delicious that they magically beckoned to me at night and
I would always eat a handful.
I had a friend at Weight Watchers who, when I attended
class with her, confessed she never ate a cookie, only
the crumbs in the bottom of the bag, so how could she
have gained so much weight? Later, we found out that when
no one was looking, she’d stomp on the bags until
every cookie was crushed into pieces, When they were all
crumbs, she ate every little piece with a clear
conscience. Of course she also never lost any weight.
Nowadays, cookies can be something else and they aren’t
edible which is maybe a good thing. These are the kind
that can’t make you fat, they only drive you crazy.
Today’s cookies can be found on your computer
and there’s no sugar or icing on them. I tried
signing on to a Greeting Card program and they asked me
to register by signing my name, they also asked me
something about my cookies. Cookies? I
dropped my mouse in shock. Who would be crazy
enough to want to know about my cookies on the Web?
It took awhile before I finally discovered that these
cookies weren’t edible. Cookie is computer
lingo for data on a Web site. Let me explain:
A cookie is data that a Web site sends to your
browser to store on your computer’s hard drive for
later retrieval. Does this make it clear? According
to information gathered from YAHOO, the stored
data is then sent back to the Web site every time you
visit that site. The data gives away a lot of
secrets i.e., user name and password for that site, items
you might be purchasing on the Web, and other information.
These Cookies are not like Oreos and Fig Newtons. They
help large advertising companies build user profiles on
you and on me, record the time and date of our visit to
their Web site, and track our purchases if we are doing a
shopping-cart trip. Interesting?
Now if that isn’t confusing enough, along comes
something (which you can buy and get installed), called a
Cookie Crusher. This is guaranteed to filter out data you
don’t want anyone to know about. (Like my friend
from Weight Watcher who didn’t want anyone to know
she was eating all the cookies.)
I could clarify this a bit more but probably a Web
Master can give you better data. But, before I
forget, I just want to mention that there is also
something called the Cookie Alert. No need to
explain; I’m sure you have one at your house, too.
Mine is my husband or my dog whichever comes into my
kitchen first and sees me eating a cookie.
Many years ago on TV we had an actor named Ed Burns
who carried a comb and was always combing his hair in a
television series which I think was called "Route 66".
He was called Cookie and there was also a popular song
called, "Cookie Lend Me Your Comb" which came
from the show. My cookies were Ed Burns, my friend’s
daughter who was called Cookie because she was sweet
enough to eat, plus the delicious cookies on my kitchen
shelf. I prefer these to what we now have to swallow on
our computers. Modern technology isn’t sweet or
delicious, it’s merely annoying and hard to
understand unless, of course, you have a cookie
crusher in your computer.
I like the baked kind of cookies even though they make
you gain weight. So, Viva la Chocolate chip cookies and
Oreos with cream filling as I sit at my computer, coffee
in hand, and E-mail Bill Gates to complain about this new
cookie stuff. Of course, he may be busy, relaxing
with a hot cup of latte and a cookie, himself.
ŠLiz Kollar 2003
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