The Death of the Betty Crocker Inside

Guy in line behind me at the grocery store: So... you're making cookies, huh?

Me: I promise they're not all for me. *smiles charmingly* I'm being an overachieving wife and baking cookies for all my husband's troops. *mentally pats self on back*

Today I decided to go above and beyond. In an effort to get the "Best and Coolest Wife Ever" award, I attempted to make 100 some cookies for the Man's guys who probably don't get very much to eat and who definitely don't have wives as awesome as me. I also had to make brownies for the fall festival tomorrow, so I thought I'd just get my bake on and be all domestic (I even ironed some napkins--be impressed). And, in order to make it even more interesting, I thought I'd do a photo-journalistic overview of what happened, thinking that it would be a great opportunity to show off my culinary skills.

The baking escapades started off well-organized and seemingly idyllic:

And the brownies came out beautifully:

But the first batch of cookies, um, disintegrated:

And the second batch wasn't much better:

This is the third batch on the way in. It turned out pretty much the same as the others, ie. ugly:

Further cookie death occurred when transferring the cookies from the wax paper, where they had cooled, to the ziplock bags for storage.

So, at the end of the day, I'm left with two beautiful pans of brownies and a bunch of ziplocked cookie shards. Needless to say, I doubt I'm going to send these cookies to the Man (although maybe the demolition would be blamed on the postal service instead of me) since I don't want to be "the lieutenant's wife who, bless her soul, can't cook". Here's my disappointed face: