I Might Need An Intervention

A few months ago, a new Trader Joe's opened in my part of town. I'd never been to a Trader Joe's before, but have always heard good things about it. And one of the things I always heard is that if I ever go to Trader Joe's, I have to try the cookie butter.
It was a few months before I ventured into the new Trader Joe's because the place was always packed and the parking lot is tiny, and there always seemed to be line of traffic waiting to get in. Even now, months after it opened, on weekends there's still a line of traffic waiting to get into the parking lot. I thought it was just because it's a cool new store for our area. Now I know better. Now I know it must be the cookie butter.

It started innocently enough. I went with a neighbor one weekday morning a few weeks ago around 9:15, and there was no crowd. We had a lovely time exploring the wonder that is a Trader Joe's store. Lots of beautiful fresh produce, tons of interesting food products, and amazingly reasonable prices. "Oh look," I said to my friend... "There's that cookie butter stuff. Even my mom said I have to try it." Into the basket it went.

For those of you who don't know what cookie butter is, it's like peanut butter, only made with crushed up spice cookies. While chatting with the cashier at the checkout, I mentioned that I'd never had it before. He immediately sent another associate to fetch me a taste. (I'm guessing this is how they hook you, like pushers.... they give you a taste and send you down that rabbit hole.) I took the sample the associate handed me (topped with the new cookie butter ice cream, no less) and tasted it. I think my eyes rolled into the back of my head and I'm pretty sure I swooned.

When I got home, I thought I'd try it again, to see what just the pure unadulterated cookie butter was like without the interference of the cookie butter ice cream. I should have known better. One spoonful led to another. And then a few minutes later, I had to have one again. Within hours, I had developed a full-blown cookie butter addiction. I could barely walk by the kitchen without stopping to stick a spoon in the jar! Pure evil in its addictiveness!

Beware the evil that is Speculoos Cookie Butter!

The jar was empty a few days later, and I happened to see another brand of cookie butter at my regular grocery store. How had I not noticed this stuff before? So I got a jar of the other brand, and I have to say it didn't do it for me. Don't get me wrong... if you're out of Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter and can't get to Trader Joe's, the other brand will do in a pinch. But I imagine it's like making do with a valium when you really want heroin or crack. It'll calm you down, but it won't satisfy your cookie butter craving like the TJ brand does. (Or maybe it's just me.)

Back to Trader Joe's I went a couple weeks later. This time, I got the crunchy variety of their cookie butter. Biggest mistake yet. I'm a lost cause now. Hopelessly addicted and doomed to weigh 600 pounds in no time. I have never in my life had a food that I thought "I can't keep this in my house" until now. And to all those people that urged me to try the cookie butter, thanks a lot! What kind of malicious trick was that? You're all monsters! And how can Trader Joe's be allowed to legally produce and sell such an addictive substance? It's dangerous, I tell ya! There's not even a warning label on the jars.

Hello, my name is Remarkable Monkey, and I'm a cookie-butterholic.

Is there twelve step program for this? Anybody wanna go to a meeting with me?