Penis Cookies

Sometimes I’m a bit of a Nazi on the tennis court in that I don’t want to talk. I want to play. I am never condemning of my partner’s shots and I try always to make gracious calls (sometimes to a fault), but if there’s too much chit-chat and not enough hitting, I can’t help it, I get really impatient and speak up.

When Ann told me last week that she’d have to leave our Friday clinics a half hour early for work, I felt all the more entitled to hush everyone up so we could play, play, play and make the most of our time with her. Last Friday we all played very seriously, very quietly, and Ann left at 10 (as she said she would) and it wasn’t fun at all.

Magic happened in the days that ensued, and Ann got her conference call moved to 10:30. I showed up much lighter today, willing to let the gabbing go on and on if everyone wanted, because I was so happy Ann could stay and, I guess when it comes down to it, the chatting is what makes it special. But we were all uncharacteristically quiet this morning – a little too “all business” – and no one really knew how to break out of it.

Until Eileen started talking about the penis cookies.

She bakes – professionally – and the local sex shop owner had hired her to cater a party tonight. (Ok, it’s not a sex shop. It’s a store with sexy clothes and accoutrements to put some spice back in your life. Or so I hear.)

Eileen is always asking us if we have this or that type of cookie cutter, and invariably the answer is, no. She didn’t even consult us on this one, simply announcing that yesterday the three penis cookie cutters she’d ordered arrived in the mail – small, medium, large – and that she’d spent the night baking, her house now full of penis cookies.

Eileen has four young boys and they tend to get into things. It was mainly for this reason that she’d kept the penis cookies out of the way and under cover. Yet one of her sons unearthed one this morning. “Mom,” he’d said, trotting up to her, penis cookie cocked in her direction, “you made us guns!”

(Isn’t there an Army song about that?)

It was almost shameful how much four middle-aged women had to say about penis cookies. Needing to know how they were iced. In what state of arousal they'd been depicted. Descriptions of how to make them racially diverse. Circumcised? Un? How many points in a penis cookie, asked the Weight Watcher.

We all played great today. Maybe something about knowing that one of our own would be surrounded this evening by women cooing over her perfectly formed, tastefully iced goodies. She said she’d save us some and bring them along next week.

I hope they keep.