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Every girl knows her worst ene­my is the cook­ie jar. The vel­vet noose of female­dom. The Achilles heel of being a lady. Always there to embrace you with warmth and sug­ar when you have no man to hold you.

Day­time tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty Chris­tianne Van Demme shares her guide to sur­viv­ing the con­stan­cy of the eter­nal cook­ie jar. Lis­ten to her, ladies. She’s been there before.

First and fore­most, always pay for your gro­ceries in cash- and nev­er bring enough cash to get any­thing but the basics. When you inevitably sac­ri­fice a few apples for a bag of cook­ies, remem­ber to buy only taste­less low-cal lemon cook­ies. Even you won’t want to eat these!

Of course, when you do break into these lemon-fla­vored bits of card­board, try to eat only two a day- and make them last as long as possible!

When you end up eat­ing the entire­ty of the cit­rus bricks dur­ing a late night sob-fest watch­ing Brid­get Jones… DON’T WORRY! Just go out, get drunk, and hit on the nerdi­est man you can find at your cor­ner bar. This will make you feel bet­ter — and he’ll feel bet­ter, too! Nerds are glad for any female to go out with them. Even a girl whose hips are fat with cook­ies. After bring­ing the nerd home, make this weak­ling your boyfriend. Do it for your future.
You should then con­grat­u­late your­self on get­ting a boyfriend by buy­ing real­ly fan­cy French bis­cuit cook­ies. Put them in the cook­ie jar. Screw the cap on tight. 

When your new boyfriend is too weak to open the jar, feel free to dump him in a sug­ar-jonesing rage. Your angry adren­a­line will fuel you enough to open and eat the entire jar.

Drunk on sug­ar and not think­ing straight, you stum­ble to the store and buy some Chips Ahoy! Chunky. Go ahead and eat these as you shuf­fle down the street. Then fall into the good olé bar around the corner. 

Drown your sor­rows in a wine that pairs well with cook­ies; when things get hairy and you start dip­ping Chips Ahoy! in your Chardon­nay, you may notice a pair of sym­pa­thet­ic hazel eyes watch­ing you from across the pub. They’re a girl’s eyes and, trust us, that is just fine. We all have les­bian affairs from time to time — embrace it! 

Bond with each oth­er over late night snick­er­doo­dle bak­ing par­ties. Eat Ital­ian wed­ding cook­ies in bed. Savor Ore­os on cold, rainy nights by the fire. But remem­ber: like the best Ore­os, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the affair will get stale.

You’ll real­ize that cook­ies are the only thing you have in com­mon. And the rela­tion­ship will just slow­ly… disappear. 

You’ll fall into despair, down a spi­ral of self-destruc­tion when you real­ize your les­bian girl­friend was the only man you ever loved. Even­tu­al­ly, your friends- find­ing you cry­ing and cov­ered in crumbs on your kitchen floor — encour­age you to go out again for a girls’ night on the town!

You go along, unwit­ting­ly, your club­bing pants far too tight now from months of shame­less eat­ing. But, chin up! — boys love curves. And then a hot guy stares at you from across the dance floor. Encour­aged by the new­found new­ness of het­ero­sex­u­al­i­ty, your con­fi­dence surges — hit on that hot tall guy at the end of the bar!

Bring him home with you! Before you sleep with him though, put the cook­ies you bought before your friends’ lat­est inter­ven­tion in the cook­ie jar and have the boy hide the jar on the top-most shelf in your apart­ment. Then, ever so quick­ly, break it off with him before he can buy you a step-ladder.

Depressed that you broke up with the only guy who ever tru­ly cared for you, take two Ambi­en to help you sleep. In the mid­dle of the night, you will sleep­walk to the kitchen, scale the counter, climb on top of the refrig­er­a­tor and, almost dying in the process, retrieve the cook­ie jar.

You will awake in a pool of crumbs on your kitchen floor. Again. Wip­ing the choco­late chips from your eyes, you take a long, soul-search­ing look in the mirror.

Heav­ier than you want to be and con­trolled by the fem­i­nine hor­mon­al need for sug­ar, accept who you are. You are a woman. And you love cook­ies. It’s okay! I’ve done it myself and I still love you. ♦