Cookie Jar - New Story

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Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
It's one of those stories where I feel there's more to it, but I just can't grasp it. Maybe there isn't. Some things I just don't understand, like one of the last sentences 'In the end we all prefer the bitter to the sweet,' while it's all about cookies which are sweet obviously. It's like it's all trying to tell you something, but I'm not sure what.

But if others can't find a deeper meaning, perhaps there isn't one.

Maybe the unending supply of cookies stands for the unending love of the mother for the boys, and in contrast to that is the brutal, loveless reality of the war. Something like that.
 

Nomik

Carry on
Jun 19, 2016
3,973
22,555
47
Derry, NH
I feel like I'm being goaded into dissecting this all over again
It's one of those stories where I feel there's more to it, but I just can't grasp it. Maybe there isn't. Some things I just don't understand, like one of the last sentences 'In the end we all prefer the bitter to the sweet,' while it's all about cookies which are sweet obviously. It's like it's all trying to tell you something, but I'm not sure what.

But if others can't find a deeper meaning, perhaps there isn't one.

Maybe the unending supply of cookies stands for the unending love of the mother for the boys, and in contrast to that is the brutal, loveless reality of the war. Something like that.
Not by you, just by the universe. (I've already given a fairly detailed analysis of it -somewhere) This comment keeps appearing no matter what I do. I'm going to the store now-ouch! I literally just stubbed my toe..
Fifteen minutes later . . .

All I can tell you is that I have the soundtrack to Little Shop of Horrors stuck on mental replay- "Feed me or Down on Skid Row"- two quick thoughts:
Last night after I went to sleep to photographs moved from the piano to my workstation; one was of my dad at work in the seventies, the other was of my dad, my half brother, and his recently deceased wife, Leslie.
The second thought is about a blue fire truck cookie jar that my son Danny got for Christmas as an heirloom present. I recently had to make a mad dash to storage and rescued it for him. I don't know how these events are related and I've learned not to think too much on it.

Now, I need to go to the store. The moral of the story is . . Treasure your kids, no matter how or when, even through the teen years, after you've made mistakes and spent to long dwelling on them, they are your legacy.
 
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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
It's one of those stories where I feel there's more to it, but I just can't grasp it. Maybe there isn't. Some things I just don't understand, like one of the last sentences 'In the end we all prefer the bitter to the sweet,' while it's all about cookies which are sweet obviously. It's like it's all trying to tell you something, but I'm not sure what.

But if others can't find a deeper meaning, perhaps there isn't one.

Maybe the unending supply of cookies stands for the unending love of the mother for the boys, and in contrast to that is the brutal, loveless reality of the war. Something like that.
...in regard to the bitter/sweet, my thought here is that so many people look beyond the good things because they have become accustomed to stressing and can't see the "Happiness Forest" if you will, for the trees....
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
Perhaps there is no metaphor at all.

Perhaps this time, a portal to another world just took the shape of a cookie jar.

As for why is it filled with cookies, it is because it IS a cookie jar, so it is only natural that it should have cookies.

If the portal had been a shampoo bottle, it would be filled with shampoo.

All of that is just my way of saying there is nothing to "understand", because the story does not show the origin of the jar or the reason why it is shaped that way. It is just something that is, leaving us only the rest of the story to enjoy. :blush:

Now, once we simply accept the portal is a cookie jar, we can focus on the feelings this particular cookie jar brings, both good and bad.
images-1.jpeg
 

daniel ray brower

Well-Known Member
Apr 28, 2016
58
203
52
Atlanta, Ga.
Great short story no matter what the meaning or the metaphor is...
Although... Maybe it's that people prefer the bitter sweet and the cookie jar was maybe a reflection of the bitter sweetness of the brothers relationship with their mother. And that's how people prefer things sometimes... To take the bitter with the sweet... So they can have the sweet... Or maybe it's just a good entertaining story...
 

RichardX

Well-Known Member
Sep 26, 2006
1,737
4,434
Thanks for posting, but not sure if I fully understand it.

Is the jar some sort of metaphor? For what exactly? It seems to be all about war, both real and imagined (or real in some other dimension) by Rhett's mother. But the different elements don't come together for me...

Also, sometimes there are too many stories that are told from a retirement home.

It could just be a story or maybe you could read into it that King is the older character and the cookie jar is perhaps a metaphor for his imagination. The source of his ideas and stories. Always filling up. And perhaps in aging he realizes that the secrets of the jar will go unused unless someone like his sons Joe and Owen carry on. So he passes it on to them with a kind of bittersweet recognition that it means his time is coming to an end and it is up to someone else as to how they use it.
 

doowopgirl

very avid fan
Aug 7, 2009
6,946
25,119
65
dublin ireland
It could just be a story or maybe you could read into it that King is the older character and the cookie jar is perhaps a metaphor for his imagination. The source of his ideas and stories. Always filling up. And perhaps in aging he realizes that the secrets of the jar will go unused unless someone like his sons Joe and Owen carry on. So he passes it on to them with a kind of bittersweet recognition that it means his time is coming to an end and it is up to someone else as to how they use it.
Well said.:clap:
 

César Hernández-Meraz

Wants to be Nick, ends up as Larry
May 19, 2015
605
4,416
44
Aguascalientes, Mexico
This story was 10 times better than Gwendy's Button Box. It's interesting that Cookie Jar came and went with nary a ripple in the SK universe but GBB was and is still being promoted with so much hoopla. Guess it's just the old publicity machine at work.

I drew two fan art pieces for Cookie Jar, and still none for Gwendy's Button Box, so you may be into something.

Or maybe I just have not read Gwendy's yet, so who knows? :a11: