Hi Annie!
It started with the best of intentions. As most disasters do.
Ominous!
Yesterday, they had been watching a breaking news alert on the television in the newsroom when the station cut to a commercial where a Hollywood family of four in matching aprons rolled out cookie dough with matching smiles while the narrator intoned a message about family togetherness at the holidays before plugging a chain of grocery stores that promised to make shopping a pleasure.
Find everything that’s wrong with this picture.
LOIS:
![[Linked Image]](https://cosgan.de/images/midi/froehlich/a065.gif)
Pick me! Pick me!
It had been right there on the tip of her tongue: a snarky comment about how many glasses of wine that woman had already downed and how long after the cameras cut off it would take for her to start screaming at the children about the mess in her kitchen.
I wanna go awww, but this just too funny
And the snark had died on her tongue as Clark began to wax poetic about his mother’s delicious Christmas cookies.
Made with chocolate?
LOIS:
![[Linked Image]](https://cosgan.de/images/smilie/nahrung/c099.gif)
But given that just two weeks ago a head injury had robbed him of all memory of who he was and where he came from, she had curbed that instinct and decided to bite her tongue and let him indulge in his nostalgia.
Ooooh, what if he remembered all that from a movie!
This was Clark’s first year at the Planet, and that meant there was no way he was going to get to go home to Smallville for the holiday.
Well…
Personally, Lois was always happy to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was the perfect excuse to avoid making the rounds of obligatory holiday appearances at the homes of extended family members to whom she’d like to forget she was related – or worse, dining alone with her mother and two decade’s worth of grievances of Christmas Past.
You can just imagine how they would all talk about how Lois couldn’t get a better job at that great paper, the Metropolis Star. If she had only applied herself more during college, like that darling roommate of hers.
condescendingly explaining what a fax machine was to his mother
That would be called metsplaining today.
So, in a rare moment of holiday cheer, Lois had decided to surprise him by recreating Martha Kent’s famous chocolate chip cookies.
The recipe is chocolate-based, so there is a good chance the end result won't be poisonous.
The cookies needed to be pulled from the oven after precisely nine minutes and then transferred immediately to cooling racks so they would stop baking. That kept the bottoms from crisping up and made the cookies stay soft and tender.
And that's how Lois’s apartment building blue up. Also…yummie!
She had set the timer for exactly nine minutes, just as Clark had said. But at six minutes, an acrid smell had begun to fill the room. And at seven minutes, smoke had begun to seep from the edges of the oven.
Does Lois’s oven have different heating characteristics?
She did not hear the familiar whoosh over the scream of the alarm, but when the smoke suddenly began to thin and the alarm ceased its screeching, she knew immediately the source of her rescue.
On the plus side, she found a good alarm system. She only has to keep the goons there for six minutes, offering them freshly baked goods at the end of that time period.
. “What were you making anyway?” He opened the oven and stared at the contents, dumbfounded. He turned to look at her, and then back at the oven, obviously at a loss for words.
Charcoal biscuits. A metropolitan specialty.
She peered around him and saw what remained of the cookie dough in charred blobs at the bottom of the oven.
Huh.
Lois,” he said incredulously. “Those are cooling racks. Baking sheets are solid metal.”
/Blinks/
So I thought if I could bake them on the racks that would save a step.
Its like when she goes from discovering the crooks to apprehending them by herself instead of involving the police before writing the story. Saves a step. Gets the story in the morning edition.
He looked from her back to the scorched mess and said nothing. Her cheeks burned again. “So much for that theory,” she said with a self-conscious shrug.
Maybe he should now disconnect the gas from her oven and seal the gas line. Much safer for the building.
So I thought maybe I could make him chocolate chip cookies like his mom’s for Christmas Eve tomorrow.”
We should perhaps not tell her that every word she says will go straight to Clark's ear.
“He cares about you too, Lois,” Superman said quietly, as if he had read her thoughts. “And just between you and me, I don’t think he’s all that disappointed to be spending the holiday here with you rather than going home to Smallville.”
And yet, there’s no red flags all over the place.
Well, I…. There’s really no one I’d rather spend Christmas with,” she admitted. “But if you tell him that, I’ll deny I ever said it.”
Well…
It was only after he was gone that she thought to wonder why she had spent this rare time alone with him discussing her relationship with Clark, rather than trying to get to know him better or asking him about his feelings for her.
Must have been because she was way too intimated by the situation to talk about anything more personal than her work partner/best friend/secret crush.
On her desk, beside her keyboard, was a steaming cup of coffee and a red and white striped tin
Clark! You really shouldn't use Superman as your overnight delivery system.
Do you have plans for dinner?” Clark asked softly.
He just deposited 10,000 kcal of chocolate goods in front of her. I think her dinner plans are covered.
/Psst/ 'her heart'
And he was right; it was the best cookie in the universe.
Awwww!
What an adorable Christmas tale! Lois sure is the cutest.
SUPERMAN:
![[Linked Image]](http://cosgan.de/images/midi/froehlich/d025.gif)
![[Linked Image]](https://cosgan.de/images/smilie/xmas/a042.gif)
Michael
