UNDISCLOSED WAREHOUSE AT CAMP NORTH END — Harry, Harry, Harry. Why make this any harder than it has to be? We both know how this ends. You tell me where the box of free sugar cookies are, you walk out that door a free man. You don’t—and we both suffer.
I told you once, and I’ll tell you again: the free sugar cookies at Harris Teeter were a pillar of my childhood. They weren’t something you asked for. They weren’t hidden behind a counter or rationed by a weary employee. No—back then, they greeted you. As soon as those automatic doors hissed open, the world changed. There, on a small table at the entrance, sat two plastic boxes: one marked Sugar, the other Sugar-Free. Between them, a little sign read: “Take One.”
Then one day, they were gone. Poof. “Pandemic safety protocols,” they said. A necessary precaution, they said. And I understood—at first. But that was five years ago, Harry. Five. And do you know what I’ve seen since then? Maskless cashiers. Open salad bars. People sneezing on the hot bar. You’re telling me we can bring back entire rotisserie chickens, but not the cookies?
Some say, “They’ve started coming back! You just have to ask at the bakery counter!” Oh really? You think I’m going to shuffle over like some beggar and whisper, “Excuse me miss, do you have any free sugar cookies today?” Like some cookieless peasant in the breadlines of late-stage capitalism? No, Harry. No. Go to Hell. That’s not how this works.
Some claim they’ve found them—“Olde Providence has them across from the pizza bar,” “Indian Land, you have to ask at the bakery.” Lies. Half-truths. Cookie psyops.
There used to be a sign. A proud, majestic sign—with your face on it. A dragon who stood for something.
Now what do we have? Silence. Confusion. And the faint smell of the greatest, most understated grift of the 21st century, right under our noses.
You’re a tough bastard, Harry. I’ll give you that. You don’t talk easy. I respect that—man to man, dragon to man, whatever the hell you are. There’s honor in silence. But my patience is thin, and my blood sugar’s lower.
So I’ll ask one last time: Where. Are. The. Fucking. Cookies?
And don’t even get me started on where the coin-operated kiddie ride went.
