I admit it. I am a cookie monster. I am, I have always been, and I hope to be a cookie monster for many years to come. I have heard people say that if they can't have dogs or cats as pets in Heaven they don't want to go. I feel the same way about cookies. If they don't have a monstrous cookie jar up there I will just have to find some other place to go.

In many ways I am just like the biggest cookie monster of all - the Cookie Monster that is a Muppet character on the television show Sesame Street. His favorite cookie is the chocolate-chip and his second favorite is oatmeal cookies. Those are my favorites, too. I think he would agree with me that the best chocolate-chip and oatmeal cookies are made the old-fashioned way - home made. (That even applies to the ones made by my great granddaughter, Blake, in her first attempts recently at cookie making.)

Of course there are a few ways that the Cookie Monster and I are different. First of all, he is covered with fuzzy blue fur and has googly eyes. I wouldn't mind being covered with fur if it could be shed when warm weather comes along. And I wouldn't object to blue fur because blue just happens to be my favorite color. I'm not sure about the googly eyes, however. Maybe you develop those if you use the Google computer search engine too frequently.

The Cookie Monster has a voracious appetite and often eats everything within reach. That includes salt and pepper shakers, napkins, and telephones. While he gobbles down these inedibles he mumbles his eating sound, 'Omm nom nom nom.' I don't do that because my mother taught me that it is impolite to hum at the table. So I don't do that even if I am so happy munching cookies that I feel like humming a happy little tune. (My wife, Betty, also frowns on humming at the dinner table - especially if we are eating out.)

The Sesame Street Cookie Monster always seems to have homemade cookies available. Usually my cookie supply is store-bought. There are so many varieties of store-bought cookies that I sometimes have a hard time making a choice. Will Rogers once said, 'I never met a man I didn't like.' I feel the same way about cookies. However my very favorite store-bought cookie is the Oreo. It is also the favorite for billions of cookie eaters. To be more exact, over 362 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since it was created by the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo) in 1912.

Every Oreo eater agrees that they are the greatest but there is a dispute among Oreo lovers. It is about the best way to eat them - dunking them in milk or twisting off one side and licking the middle first. The 'lick the middle' technique was recently demonstrated on a national TV commercial. I prefer to just crunch my Oreos with a tall glass of milk on the side.