The great (Sweet Martha's) cookie caper

I was not a very popular person at the station after the first day of covering the Minnesota State Fair. It's somewhat of a tradition for the first team covering the fair to bring back a bucket of Sweet Martha's Cookies.

Since 1979, this St Paul company has mixed and baked up thousands if not millions of cookies at the state fair. You buy them piping hot by cone or bucket and then rush over a few blocks to the $1 All-You-Can-Drink-Milk stand and eat them. They melt in your mouth and are truly delicious.
I set out good-naturedly to the fair to bring back a bucket of cookies. We went out of our way to get to the cookie stand. As I was about to get in line, I spotted the price. $15 a bucket. Wow. Granted, it's always a heaping bucket, but still. I didn't have the cash or frankly the inclination to buy a $15 bucket of cookies for the breakroom. So I left.

And I'll be darned if every. single. person. didn't ask me when I got back in the station where the cookies were. I finally told the Cookie Ringleader that you don't send the girl that does the "money saver" segment to the fair and expect her to fork out $15 for a bucket of cookies and if they wanted some, they could pitch in because guess what I'm going next week for another story. Most were flabbergasted to learn the cookies cost that much, but they weren't above clammoring for what was, in their mind, state fair cookie justice. The day of the next story, the Cookie Ringleader offered to buy the bucket. I had pity on him, so I pitched in and my photographer pitched in and we came back to cheers because we were bearing a bucket of Sweet Martha's.

But before we made it back, we grabbed our ice cold milk and decided to level off the bucket before walking outside the fairgrounds. You know, commission and all.