The Cookie Monster and Me
Some years ago, The New Yorker ran a cartoon of an equestrian statue in the center of a public square. A large, austere-looking soldier was perched high on his mighty steed, the American flag fluttering behind him. Think Napoleon, poised on a white stallion overlooking the battlefield at Austerlitz. The caption read something like: Valedictorian, Senator, Five-Star General, Entrepreneur and still a disappointment to his mother. The cartoon stuck. Why?
Because I am the man on the horse! The caption under me would have had me not on a horse, but in front of a wall of books, and it would have read slightly differently: Harvard Ph.D., Vice President of University, Entrepreneur, Novelist, and Cellist. . . and still a disappointment to his mother.
The truth is, I busted my butt all my life, seeking her approval—even after my retirement, when sat in a ten-by-ten-foot cabin writing a 350-page novel when I could have been playing golf, cultivating my garden, or baking pumpkin cupcakes. Sure, I worked long and hard to satisfy something in me and maybe even to leave behind a bit of a legacy. But as I toiled from one career to the next, my mother was always at my back, nudging me forward. It seems she lived for my glory, even after she’d died. I imagine I’m not alone. It’s what keeps many a therapist in business.
When friends urge me to write my memoir, reminding me of my many and varied lives, I say, oy gewalt. There must have been an easier way to make a living, leave a legacy, and, if you must, to please a mother.
Ironically, there was. But it happened too late to undo my past. 2
For I will forever be remembered not for my Harvard Ph.D. or other accomplishments, but for nothing less than changing the American diet of millions of kids in America and around the world. And this legacy would be the result of a casual conversation that lasted less than five minutes—a brief conversation at a reception for contributors to NPR that allows me take credit for nothing less than yanking the cookie out of the mouth of the Cookie Monster and putting him on a healthy diet of dark green vegetables.
Or so I believed. Let me explain.
About a decade ago my wife and I were invited to a fancy reception in an elegant D.C. home for contributors to NPR. One of the featured participants was the distinguished journalist, Susan Stamberg. After a few martinis, I mustered up the courage to introduce myself.
“Ms. Stamberg,” I said, “I’m a great fan of yours and adore public radio and television. But I have to say, I’m disappointed that my favorite TV character, the Cookie Monster, eats, well, cookies, when he could be munching down spinach, like good old Popeye in the, you know, good old days of my childhood.”
She frowned and wrinkled her nose.
“Is the Cookie Monster setting a good example for American kids,” I continued, “half of whom are so overweight they can’t get off the couch to get another tub of ice cream?”
Steam started to issue from Ms. Stamberg’s ears. 3
“And wasn’t it good old Spinacia oleracea that gave our beloved sailor the strength to vanquish his every enemy? Remember how he’d swallow a can and his biceps would suddenly pop up, as if he’d stuffed the can into his bloody arm?”
Ms. Stamberg’s face now resembled a pressure cooker at the moment of quick release.
“So, my dear girl,” I persevered, “what about a little tweak in the diet of our googly-eyed monster? If spinach isn’t his thing, how about tofu or pumpkin seeds, which are good for the prostate?” Before I could even finish the sentence, I was nursing my drink alone. The award-winning journalist had found a more respectful guest (and one who had probably given a larger donation).
“Good try,” I said to myself, as I scoured the room for my wife, ready to make a quick escape.
I had forgotten the incident until years later, when the country was hit by a media thunderbolt. The Cookie Monster was going veggie! The Internet abounded with articles about how our likeable Muppet had changed his diet. There was even a new song, “A Cookie is a Sometimes Food.”
Since then, there has hardly been a year when the Cookie Monster didn’t have to defend himself to the likes of Stephen Colbert and Matt Lauer, who would ask questions like, “Is it true, Cookie Monster, that you’re now eating kale for dessert?”
As for me, I harbored a secret pride in being the quiet change-maker: I even boasted to my kids that their father was responsible for the monumental change that 4
affected millions of children’s eating habits around the world (a feat they regarded as far greater than anything else I’d done).
But deep down, I had my doubts. So, I wrote Ms. Stamberg an email asking whether our brief conversation the night of the special event in D.C. might have led her to raise my concerns with the Sesame Street mafia. Maybe I was just one of hundreds who had made this suggestion, the last straw that broke the Cookie Monster’s back. But that, too, would have filled me with pride. Within seconds came the reply:
“Hi, Mr. Langer, Well, I’d like to take credit . . . but, alas, I had nothing to do with the excellent turn of events on Sesame Street.”
Oh, well, so much for an easy legacy. I guess I’ll forever be the man on the steed, as it were, having slogged it out in the old-fashioned way. Hopefully my mother, buried but never gone, is not too disappointed.