Something that raised my ire ...

Yes, I know, I was good. I blogged about thing that made me happy ... I've been on a roll!! 
And now I blog this ...

SO, you know how I mentioned that we had our ward's Young Women in Excellence program yesterday? To, pretty much, celebrate how great our young women are, and to listen to some nice talks, and to see little displays of what the girls have been working on, and to eat some cookies ...

Well, K (YW President) and I worked for over an hour decorating sugar cookies. They looked really good (well, the ones that K did, since she teaches Primary school students about art and all. Mine weren't TERRIBLE ... but I'm such a blasted perfectionist that I never seem to reach my lofty standards for myself ... but I am very proud of one that I did. Because it was ADORABLE. And I do have a picture of it. Which I will get around to posting sometime. Pinky-swears!!).

Since church was over for just about all the wards (since we have two other wards ... well another ward and a branch, which is [in short] a ward-lite.), we decided that I'd take the two trays of cookies, the bags of ice for the water pitchers, and a couple lemons to slice up to make the water look/taste pretty BACK to the church and put them in the serving area there.

Which I did. About 4 P.M., I slid the cookie-laden trays back into the tray-holder/carts (so it wasn't completely obvious that there were cookies on them). I thought about leaving a note, but since I didn't have tape and my purse was in the car (since the trays were HEAVY. The cookies weren't. But those trays WERE.), I didn't.

And I drove home and chilled until 6 P.M., when I went back to the church to help set up.

We set up tables, moved chairs, tablecloths were ironed (NOT by me. I don't iron very much.), and I got the tables set up for the dessert-table. Then I was ready to set out the cookies and slice the lemons (and put the slices in the pitches of ice water).

So I pull out the trays of cookies ... And I look at them ... 

And I blink hard and look again.

And a third of our cookies are gone.

A THIRD of the cookies are GONE.

COOKIES = not all present.

So, I try not to freak out. I scurry (in my little dainty heels and full skirt) BACK into the room we've set up, grab my keys and high-tail it back to my van where I SEARCH the seats and am moving water bottles on the OFF CHANCE that MAYBE the cookies slid off the tray (even though I was CERTAIN that when I put the trays in the cart that one was full-unto-bursting).

No dice.

I pull K aside and tell her, "Not to alarm you, but we have 20 [of 60] cookies missing."

Now, K has been SLAVING to make this night the BESTEST NIGHT EVER. And, if it were me, I'd have collapsed into a puddle of tears and despair. Especially since people were starting to show up and there were a HELL of a lot more than 60 there. (Yeah, we thought we might get, like, 40 people ... We were pleasantly surprised.)

So, I plate up the 40 cookies that are left, noting that most of the ones stolen were the BEAUTIFUL ones that K had decorated (so our thief/thieves do show some art appreciation) ... and slice up the ONE lemon that's left. 

(Dude, you steal cookies from a church AND a lemon?? That's deserving of a hearty portion of WITHER THE FRIES?!?)

But, yeah, people are coming up to me, asking "Who stole the cookies?" And I have no idea. I'm more than tempted to have the bishops of the respective wards/branches read an announcement over the podium on Sunday. That was a FULL box-worth of Safeway sugar cookies! That was $3.99 that went completely to waste! (Not counting the price of the sugar, corn syrup, and milk that I've donated from my kitchen.)

Yeah, I'm rather irked. 

One of the young women listened to me gripe a little. And laughed at the possibilities for signs that I SHOULD have put up:

"Five of these cookies are laced with laxatives. I suggest you DON'T take your chances. Smoochies!! Signed, [Our ward's name]'s Young Women"
"DO NOT EAT!!! These are NOT yours!!!! *insert picture of eyes, because it's been studied that people are more likely to be honest when faced with an image (even a drawn image!) of eyes*"

"Do not eat! Why would you do that? Because you know it hurts my feeling and you know I have a knife!!!!!!! Signed, PMS Geisha of the [Our Ward's] Young Women"

Our ward's Activity Committee director thinks that it sounds like something Young Men would do. It's possible that it could have been choir members who arrived early. OR someone/some people in the Singles Branch (like I said, the ward-lite. Just a smaller congregation).

Now, if it had been a COUPLE cookies ... even FIVE ... that would have been one thing. 

But TWENTY? Twenty FRAKKIN' cookies?!?!?!?

Especially since we had a sign in one of the (most-used) rooms that said there was an activity being held tonight ... *sigh*

It's just irritating. You don't expect that in the space of two hours, you're going to find that you've had one-third of your evening's refreshments stolen.

Yeah, I'm rather peeved about it. The only way it could have been worse would have been if the cookies were going to be for the Primary (the up-to-twelve-year olds). Because stealing food from children? That's just low. And since the Young women are between the ages of 12-18, it's still stealing food from minors/children. And that burns my biscuits (to be tactful).

I almost just want to throw up my hands and say, "Why do we even try?!? I mean, really??" ... and I'm almost tempted to do it in the other wards' meetings ... But I won't. Because that's passive-agressive and inapproriate. We're at church to worship Christ. Not to listen to me rail about thieves in our midst.

The church is still true. But I'm not leaving cookies unattended in the future.
Unless someone REALLY wants me to try out my impression of Alice and her "Fist of Death."

Or I could take the page from the Evil League of Evil applicants and go for PMS Geisha's modus operandi.