I’m the CEO of Keebler, and I’m giving the board of directors some hard news: cookie sales are plummeting. Our market research shows that Gen Z prefers gummies, smoothies, and super-soft snack foods. The board is incredulous, so I hit them with a timeless adage that balances their business sense with their love of baking truisms.

My stoner roommate Drewskie keeps eating my snacks, even after I’ve warned him we don’t share food. He denies foul play, mumbling some bullshit about “thieving kitchen mice,” but I’m missing an entire sleeve of Pepperidge Farm Milanos since last night alone.

While Drewskie’s at work, I pry open my remaining Milanos, lace the insides with Death Reaper Hot Sauce, and reseal them. That night, I hear a terrible gurgling from the kitchen. I sprint out there to find Drewskie on his knees, gasping, begging for a glass of milk. With smug satisfaction, I give him a piece of life wisdom.

I’m sitting on a park bench, journaling about Albert Camus’s existentialist idea of the absurd, while feeding animal crackers to some ducks. I have enough animal crackers for every duck except one little weakling. I tell him what’s up.

I’m the mayor of Cookie, New Mexico, a small town outside of Truth or Consequences.

We used to be named Chuchillo, but I took a cash bribe from the Food Network, to rename our town as a promotional gimmick for the show “Bakery Wars.” They want to film here due to our town’s reputation as the sugar cookie capital of the southwest.

But filming a huge reality show in our tiny town makes life chaotic, and I’m voted out of the mayor’s office in a recall election. Then “Bakery Wars” announces they’ll be filming in nearby Arroyo Noche instead, which has been renamed to “Donut.”

I write a single line in my diary to sum up my failures.

I’m a beloved professor of mechanical engineering—known for my accessible, hilarious examples—giving a lecture on heterogenous material failure vis-à-vis Griffith’s criterion for brittle fractures. After covering domes, ceramics, and glass sculptures, I pull an Oreo out of my pocket, smash it with both hands, and shout a zinger that leads to a standing ovation.

I’m a top bureaucrat for the European Union, in the Division Of Digital Welfare (DODW). My greatest achievement was spearheading the EU initiative for mandatory website cookie banners, with a brilliant “accept” or “reject” option that I personally invented.

Sadly, my cookie banners are now seen as a total pain in the ass. People use blocking software to stop the banners, and the political challenges are mounting: my cookie banner is cooked.

I decide to go scorched Earth. My new life’s mission is to ban website cookies, full stop. I stare out my office window in Brussels, stroke my fine silk tie, and, in a German accented English—the official dialect of EU busybodies—I dramatically announce my new campaign.

America’s top food reality show, “Bakery Wars,” is back, and I’m its celebrity announcer.

In an episode four twist, our snooty French hipster judge complains that cookies are “beaucoup gauche, perfect for embarrassing simpletons” and convinces the other judges that pistachio macarons are superior. I turn to the camera and tell our shocked viewers that America’s favorite snackable dessert has been dethroned.

I’m the tour manager of America’s most beloved 1870s acrobat and variety performer, The Astounding Miss Zazel, known to her legion of fans as “Cookie.” Cookie does it all: trapeze, high wire, juggling, clowning, miming, snake charming, human cannonball, you name it.

As Cookie gains worldwide acclaim, her family brings on a new business partner: Henry “Hank” Beaumont, a hard-driving New York businessman and infamous circus magnate. But Hank pushes Cookie hard, convincing us to book three big tent shows per night and expand Cookie’s act to include taming a Komodo Dragon.

The stress builds, and Cookie becomes so frazzled that one night she has a meltdown and throws one of her flaming torches at the Komodo Dragon who immediately attacks and bites off her arm. The audience screams and flees.

Hank is gobsmacked. I just shake my head, turn to him, and, with a tear in my eye, say the hardest line I’ve ever had to say in my life.