I baked cookies, only there was a structural failure.

Recipe:

1. Put two sticks of butter and two large eggs on the counter. No, not there. The dogs can reach it. And not there on top of the dishwasher. It runs hot, so the butter will melt.

2. Check the World of Warcraft auction house. Why are people selling Tidespray Linen at ridiculously high prices at the end of the expansion when I want to buy my longboi? Fuck.

3. Set up the KitchenAid mixer. Wonder why you put it away last night. From now on, leave it out.

4. Carefully measure 1.5 cups of dark brown sugar into the mixing bowl because we’re all gonna die anyway, so go out with taste. Add the butter. Use this thing to try and mix the butter and sugar. Cry when it turns into a lump.

5. Find a spatula - not a pancake flipper, but one of those thin silicone things - and unstick the butter from the mixer thingy. Try mixing again, with no success.

6. Fuck it. Speed 10 will mix this, thanks to centripetal force (or centrifugal?) whatever.

7. Crack one egg into a mug. Use a fork to pick out pieces of the shell. Pour the egg into the mixing bowl.

8. Regret not turning the mixer speed all the way down first. Clean up.

9. Use the spatula thing to scrape down the bowl. Try again with the other egg, on low speed.

10. Add vanilla. Sure, measure if you’re feeling cowardly, but vanilla is awesome. Add at least one teaspoon. Go for it.

11. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, even if you used salted butter, because we’re on the brink of an apocalypse. Maybe splash in some more vanilla, then scrape again.

12. Add TWO teaspoons of baking powder. That’s the stuff in the can, not the box. Make sure you add two. Not one. Not three. Don’t fuck this up.

13. Bet you’re now questioning if you put in that second teaspoon, aren’t you? Uh huh. I see you.

14. The recipe says add 2 3/4 cups flour, but let’s be real. Are you really going to dirty up another measuring cup, or just fill the 1-cup one not quite all the way? That’s what I thought.

14a. Was that cup 2 or 3? Scrape down the sides. If it looks like batter, add more flour.

14. Mix on a fairly high speed for as long as it takes you to clean up the cloud of flour that sprayed everywhere because you still had the mixer at warp 11, or for 3 minutes, whichever is longer.

Wait, that was step 15.

16. Lay out a really long piece of plastic wrap on the counter you frantically cleaned after reading this tweet. Preparation is for the weak, amirite?

17. Turn off the mixer. This is important.

18. Spend ten minutes trying to unlock the bowl from the mixer.

19. Splodge the cookie dough into a long mound down the center of the plastic wrap like you’re fortifying a medieval village. Wrap the plastic around the dough, then roll into a vaguely even cylinder about 2-3 inches across and a foot and a half-ish long.

20. Refrigerate at least overnight. Spend the whole time making sure no one eats it, sword fights with it, or makes assumptions about your sex life. I mean, look at it. Seriously.

21. Tomorrow, preheat the oven to 350. Lay parchment paper over a flat cooking thing with sides. You can use a side less baking sheet but that will end up with your balls on the bottom of the oven. That’s a promise, not a threat.

22. Take out your cookie cylinder. Cut it in half lengthwise. Then cut it into slices. You want to try to get approximately 30-36 cookies. Get someone else to do the math.

23. Roll a cookie chunk into a ball. Then put it on the now-sliced plastic wrap, wash your hands, and pour some sugar into a bowl. This can be white or brown sugar. Add cinnamon if your wife won’t get a migraine. Use more sugar than you think you need. Apocalypse now, yeah?

24. Go back to rolling cookie balls, coating each one in sugar. Every few balls, put them in the fridge so they cool off. This keeps them from spreading too fast.

I swear, this wasn’t supposed to sound quite so dirty. Or threatening.

25. When the oven dings, put the first 6-8 balls on the parchment-covered cookie sheet, leaving LOTS of room for them to spread. Trust me on this.

26. Bake for 9-11 minutes. They won’t be golden brown unless you burn them, Satan. Gooey is better.

27. Very gently scrape the half-liquid cookies from the parchment with a legit spatul (like for pancakes, not for scraping bowls). Cool on a wire rack out of reach of dogs or other humans. You’re allowed to barricade the kitchen doorway for this part. It’s the law.

28. While you bake and cool the rest of the cookies, make coffee.

29. Drink coffee, eat cookies, and laugh as your fellow shelter-in-place humans and canines plead for just one cookie — just a little taste. If they wanted cookies, they would have baked their own damn cookies.

30. The end. You earned your cookies. Enjoy them!

(Save two, though, as bribes: one to vacuum the kitchen floor so you don’t get ants, one to wash the dishes.)