The Cookie Thief

Description

A Fresh Story with an Old Recipe. I first heard a version of this story in 1992 while attending a 7 Habits; seminar by Stephen Covey's group. I have shared it many times over the years, finding it a wonderful, simple way to create meaningful dialogue about shifting paradigms, courageous communication, crucial conversations, premature judgment, thinking errors, etc. It has been such a valuable story to me that I wanted to share it with others in a fresh new way so, like my other book, The Dog Poop Initiative, it can be used in the board rooms, classrooms and the living rooms of leaders and parents everywhere. In my attempts to identify and credit the author of the original story, I learned that the story has been around for more that 100 years and the original creator of the tale is unknown. As I researched the history of the tale, I found that although the characters change gender and nationality, and the cookies are alternately candy bars, donuts, biscuits, etc., the irony of mistaken accusation and embarrassing misjudgment stays the same. It has been re-told in speeches, books, skits, and was even the central script of a short film titled The Cookie Thief (2005), said to be a nearly exact replica of another short film done (1991). These films attribute their version of the story to Sylvia Potts. A lady named Valerie Cox created her version of the story in the 90 s and it was published it in a Chicken Soup book. The author Douglas Adams claimed it actually happened to him, but those claims were challenged by those who heard it years before his claim. So who owns the story? Well, if you are holding this book I guess you do. Our family s favorite cookie recipe is an old one, but each time my wife makes a new batch our family enjoys again something, warm and deliciously fresh. I hope my retelling of this classic tale does the same for you and invites discussion, reflection, and a re-commitment to the moral it so tastefully shares. So pour yourself a nice cold glass of milk and savor this freshly baked version of The Cookie Thief.