2017/12/27 - Hands in the Cookie Jar

There were two times in my life that I can clearly recall  getting my “hand caught in the cookie jar.”

The first was way back in 1982 when I found myself “single” again, after my first wife left me. My new girlfriend Melinda and I started dating after meeting at a TAC party (see a previous post titled  “Melinda”).

Melinda an I both worked in this huge Texaco headquarters 4-story complex in White Plains NY. And as young lovers might often do, we planned to “accidenty” meet somewhere in the building.

On this day we coordinated meeting in the elevator, and once alone, we started kissing madly. And when the elevator started to slow down, it was our signal to separate and pretend we don’t even know each other.

Unfortunately fate presented a different plan.

You see, I was a professional NewYorker, wearing a 3-piece suit with jacket open and a dozen buttons streaming down my vest. She had about the same number of gold chains dangling from her neck.

Needless to say, the chains and the buttons got all tangled up, and as the elevator door opened to a group of familiar co-workers, we were frantically trying to get untangled.

Amidst laughing, someone in the croud said “Someone’s got there hands caught in the cookie jar!”

....

The next time was with Deb. Ironically she was the first woman that I dated after my my next marriage breakup. My ex and I had filed for an uncontested divorce and were in the middle of a 90-day “cool off” period required by Boulder county. Needless to say, Deb and I were trying to keep our new relationship secret so as not to look like I was cheating, or that she was breaking up a marriage.

We planned to meet in this small restaurant, in this little mountain town, in the middle of nowhere.

Now Deb and I were both very prominent and popular mountaineering instructors in the Colorado Mountain Club. Everybody in the “hard core” group knew of us.

There we were, waiting for our food in this secluded restaurant in Wonderviev Colorado, holding all four of our hands across the table, lovers in love.

Meanwhile a party of 6 was being seated in the big empty table next to ours. Unbelievable it was a  CMC group, going for food after an outing. And seated right next to Deb was Ginger, another prominent member of the club, who smiled and announced “Someone’s got there hand caught in the cookie jar!”

I’m always surprised at how stupid I can be. For some reason I thought that my friend Ginger (who I had actually dated twice, 15 years earlier, when she was a hot 49-year old rock-jock, and I was between my first and second marriage) would keep our secret, a secret.

My next girlfriend was also in the club. Not wanting to gossip, I purposely never mentioned my last girlfriend (Deb) to her. In my stupidity, I was totally surprised  when she told me that she knew I went out with Deb. I remember telling her “I didn’t think anyone knew”, to which she replied “Steve, EVERYBODY knew!”