The scene: Iowa City, 1993

The reason I was baking: Boredom

Unfortunate baking selection: Sugar cookies

Background: When I was in high school and in the grips of my eating disorder, I used to read cookbooks like romance novels. I went through a phase one Christmas in which I made some two dozen different kinds of Christmas cookies and gave them all away as gifts. Ma got mad at me because I was spending so much money on rarely used baking supplies and not even eating any of the cookies. I think it was during that period that I started viewing baking as an academic exercise best used for entertainment value. I really don't have much of a sweet tooth.

One rainy afternoon during the summer after my freshman year in college, I was in the apartment I shared with Amanda, Jenny and Steph. I was hanging out with my boyfriend at the time (I *think* -- I'm having trouble figuring out who it was, because I can picture the parking lot of this apartment complex but am picturing a boyfriend from several years later, and I know I didn't fry THAT many brain cells in college) when I decided I was bored. And when I'm bored, I like to hearken back to my childhood for entertainment options. Cookies! I decided. We should bake cookies.

Only we were in college. Without the Internet. (Imagine it!) We obviously didn't own any cookbooks, and we were too lazy to go somewhere to try to find a recipe. One of my roommates had some baking supplies. I tried to remember what goes in sugar cookies. Flour. Sugar. Baking ... something. I pulled out our popcorn bowl and started mixing stuff together. Some milk. Eggbeaters. (It was me -- we had no real eggs.) Nothing for flavoring? No problem! We have Crystal Light lemonade! We'll just use that. They'll be LEMON COOKIES!

We made the dough into cookie shapes. They were a little lumpy. Crystal Light doesn't mix very well. We couldn't remember how long to bake cookies, so we put them in for about 15 minutes and went outside for a smoke.

I was sort of excited. I mean really, how cool was I, remembering how to make cookies like that? How surprised my roommates were going to be!

When the cookies came out of the oven, they looked a little ... flat. I poked one, and it held the depression of my finger. Permanently. My boyfriend took one bite and spat it out, harking. Apparently we'd used baking powder instead of baking soda or vice versa, or maybe we even needed both. I have no idea. What I do know is that these cookies -- these cookies! -- could FLY. We took them outside to throw them off the balcony for the birds. They lofted like Frisbees, sailing across the parking lot. One even cleared the bushes forty feet away. Seriously. At the time, I expected a call from Boeing at any moment. My boyfriend deemed them a new breed of cookie: Lemonus Discuses.

We left them sitting outside in the rain, figuring they would dissolve. When we went outside a few hours later to get dinner, they were still there, impervious to the rain. Not even soft.

I had created indigestible, flying cookies. AWESOME.