Time for Change and Cherry Dip Cookies

Let me put your mind at ease right away, this has nothing to do with Obama. :)

This is the true story of a girl, $373 in change, and her favorite cherry dip cookies. Read on.
I am part of a committee at work that has been doing various types of fundraising throughout the year to raise money to put back into the community thru things like buying DVD's for the pediatric oncology unit at the hospital, adopting low income families and senior citizens for Christmas, and many other warm fuzzy things. Through all of this fundraising, quite a bit of change has been collected and it's been sitting under my desk in giant bottle banks for approximately 2 months. It just sat there and taunted me daily with "someday you'll have to take us to the bank, ha ha ha." I put it off as long as I could but the time had come when we were going to be writing checks and donating the money in the community. We thought it would be in poor taste to bounce a check to one of the charities we were trying to help so the bottles of change under my desk had to be deposited. Somehow the job fell to me. Early in the week I decided that Thursday would be designated "Bank Day." Sometimes I have to talk myself into these things.
Thursday finally came and I poured all of the change into one bottle bank and started out on my journey. First obstacle....getting out of the revolving door at work hoisting the 50 pound, 3 foot tall bottle bank without getting stuck. I'm sure the Security footage was comical but I did manage to get out without major incident. I'm more of a drive thru bank kinda girl even though I tend to hit stuff with the Princess Mobile when I do that, but I'd much rather hit stuff in the drive thru lane than have to go in, but that's just me. For the life of me I just couldn't figure out how to make going thru the drive thru with the giant bottle of change work. I had to suck it up and go in, there was no way around it. I arrived at the bank, unbuckled the bottle bank from the passenger seat, and made my way in. I kid you not when the tellers saw me walk in the door carrying a giant bottle filled with change they all avoided eye contact and tried to look very busy. I made my way up to one of the tellers, nearly throwing out my back from the weight of the bank full of change. He looked up, looked at my giant bottle, and then said, "There's a coin counter by the door, you can count it there." Oh you mean the door THAT I PASSED TO WALK ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE BANK CARRYING THIS HEAVY BOTTLE OF MONEY ONLY FOR YOU TO TELL ME TO TURN AROUND AND DO IT MYSELF?!? Oh that one!!! ("Jesus Take the Wheel" began playing in my head at this point.) Whatever happened to Customer Service? It's a lost art I tell ya. So I hauled my cargo back across the bank and found the change counter. Upon further inspection of it, I found that you had to lift a lid to get to a circle about as big as a saucer where you poured your change in to be counted. I knew right then that this was not going to go well as it required coordination and we all know that's not one of my strengths. With one hand I had to try and keep the lid propped open while trying to hoist the giant bottle bank up into a position to pour the money into the tiny circle in the middle of the machine. I think you can guess what happened when I began pouring right? If you guessed that SOME of the change made it into the opening as it was supposed to and SOME of it went bouncing 40 different directions across the bank floor you'd be correct. People were staring, the bank tellers were looking guilty and still avoiding eye contact, and I was about to start busting out bank windows with my giant bottle. Seriously. Finally the machine was done counting what I had poured in and what I had recovered from the bank floor and spit out a receipt showing how much change it had counted. $373!!!! That was ALL in change. Right below the $373 it said "A 5% fee will be deducted from this total for the use of this coin counter. " And that's when I had an aneurysm. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I marched right on up to the first available teller I saw, laid down my ticket for $373 in front of her and very calmly said, "I need to deposit this and please tell me this FEE is a joke, did you just see what I went through over there because you guys wouldn't count the change for me and now you're going to charge ME a fee? I should charge you a fee for putting me through this." The teller very stoically in her Russian accent said, "We charge you no fee since you be a customer." Well, isn't that special? In addition to the $373 in change, I had a big wad of bills that needed to be deposited as well. I filled out the deposit slip for the change and the cash and handed it to Hilda. It took her no less than 73 years to count and recount the stack of cash only to tell me it was $200 less than what I had written on the deposit slip. Annette, the committee treasurer, had counted the money before she sent it with me to the bank and I swear to you that I didn't stop and do any shoe shopping on the way there, so told her to count it again. Another 73 years later she told me it was still short. By this time I had sent Annette a text that said "Bank=sucks" and had downed 3 of the complimentary Dum Dums suckers in an effort to keep from screaming in frustration while at the bank. Sidenote: I totally solved the mystery of why banks always give out suckers...it's very hard to scream at your bank teller with a Dum Dums in your mouth. Coincidence? I think not. I was done, I changed the deposit slip to the amount Hilda said and called it good, sorry Community, that's $200 less we can spend on you but hey it was either go with that or me spending some quality time in the slammer for going postal at the bank. :) Finally, the transaction was complete and she had the nerve to tell me to have a nice day. PUHLEASE, a nice day? Don't make me hurt you Hilda. I picked up my now empty, bottle bank, grabbed another handful of Dum Dums and left. What a way to spend a lunch hour.

Now on to the Cherry Dip Cookies which have absolutely nothing to do with this story except that they make me happy, and believe me after my 45 minutes of torture at the bank I could've used about a dozen of these for immediate consumption. These are the easiest cookies you will ever make and you can vary them and create all kinds of strange and wonderful combination, but this happens to be among my favorites.

Little known secret about me...I LOVE cherry dip cones from Dairy Queen. More so the cherry dip, I could do without the cone and even the ice cream if I'm being completely honest. I always request the triple dip so I get lots of the cherry goodness. When I was pregnant with Ryder in the summer of 2003, this was one of my pregnancy cravings that i couldn't get enough of. One night after a rousing night of bowling with friends we stopped at DQ and I totally double fisted it and had a cherry dip cone in each hand. It was a glorious night. Anyway, these cookies remind me of my beloved cherry dip cone. Try them.

Cherry Dip Cookies
1 cherry chip cake mix
1/2 pkg cherry chips
1 egg
1 stick + 2 T butter
2 T. water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the egg, butter, and water with the cake mix until well combined. If it's still dry and lumpy add a little bit more water, it's still gonna be thick but should be workable and cookie dough consistency. Add in cherry chips. Drop by spoonful onto greased cookie sheet or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 8-10 minutes. They'll be soft and fluffy and chewy and delicious.

And that's it...really. Easiest cookie recipe ever. Some other exciting variations: chocolate cake mix w/ peanut butter chips, strawberry cake mix w/ white chocolate chips (I call these pinkalicious), chocolate cake mix w/ caramel swirl chocolate chips, the sky is the limit. Enjoy!