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The Cookie Thief

A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”

With each cookie she took, he took one too, when only one was left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other, she snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother. This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude, why he didn’t even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled, and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat, then she sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise, there was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair, the others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she realized with grief, that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

By Valerie Cox in “A Matter of Perspective”
Submitted by Tom “The Colonel” Parker

{ 94 comments… add one }
  • Richard Kayatt March 26, 2023, 5:22 am

    GREAT STORY..

  • Chandrika May 14, 2019, 8:31 am

    Wow !!!
    What a poetic poem . Above way to write a story.

  • mike November 27, 2018, 7:58 am

    Wow, that’s a really good story! I like the author!

  • Manou July 19, 2017, 9:57 am

    Wawww! I like the story .It as such a great lesson behind it.It illustrates how important it is to support other people even though we don’t understands what they’re doing. Like the man couldn’t understand why she was eating his cookies , and that’s what makes the story beautiful the fact that he shares with her with love and compation.That is just inspiring. The way he tolerated her eating his cookies without complaining.This is a good example of how to treat each other in life. We can not change people but we sure can change how we intereract with them as result they will change themselves. I LOVE IT.

  • Bimal Koirala July 8, 2016, 3:47 am

    I really really really love it , I had told to my friends and they also liked it thankful you for the story

  • Nehal May 7, 2015, 11:01 am

    Hey.. it is so nice story…

  • Lindsay November 1, 2014, 1:24 am

    @Jaidev: The real story is, I want to believe, the main one. The one here in the comments section is an extremely pessimistic spin on what the man’s point of view might have been. While believable, and definitely well-written, it is a bit too pessimistic for my standards. But to each one’s own.

  • Joseph September 22, 2014, 10:28 am

    Very nice…. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

  • Jaidev singh shiledar August 24, 2014, 3:29 pm

    Which one is the real story? the main one or the one which is written in the comments section? or both. anyways, i liked both of them.

  • joseph August 22, 2014, 7:02 am

    I like it !!!!!! Very nice story :):)

  • Cookie monster April 16, 2014, 3:08 pm

    I love cookies

  • Shaheena April 16, 2014, 12:08 pm

    Good one like it so much

  • Rhea Vanessa M. Reorizo January 24, 2014, 3:56 am

    I was so serious reading and wondering why do the man has the guts to eat the ladies cookies. But I started to laugh when I read the ending. This story is really cool. I love it!!!

  • Sino January 10, 2014, 7:36 am

    Hahahaha- nice one.

  • Arifa January 2, 2014, 7:33 pm

    Oooo mummyy hahaha this was really great.

  • Sam November 3, 2013, 10:31 pm

    Beautiful story. Love it!

  • Colorado Paul October 25, 2013, 10:45 pm

    The Thief

    I was on my way back home after my brother’s funeral. It had snowed hard and the airport had shut down with me in it. The last place I wanted to be, one of the unwashed masses, having slept in my seat overnight.

    I got hungry but I didn’t want to move my bags so I ran over to the vending machine and bought a bag of cookies. That was a mistake because I didn’t have change for a $20 and my water bottle was empty.

    So I hurried back to my bags to find a woman sitting on the bench next to me. She looked well rested and smartly dressed in her tight fitting skirt and shoes. The straps of her pumps were engulfed by her “cankles”, the skirt rode up her thick and fleshy thigh. She gave me a derisive glance when she saw me looking and went back to reading her Kindle.

    The cookies tasted like cardboard so I left them on the end table between the chairs, hoping that the woman might see them and start up a conversation. “Maybe she would watch my bags so I can go to the bathroom and get some water,” I thought. But instead I saw her chubby fingers reach out and grab a cookie without even having to look at the bag. She was on automatic eating pilot, balancing the Kindle, moving to mouth, changing the page, and repeat. I watched in amazement, she looked nearly robotic. Occasionally I would reach for the bag when she did to see if she would take notice – she seemed to be oblivious to me.

    I saw the last cookie poke over the side of the bag and grabbed it, I really needed to pee and the thought of gathering up all my things and toting them to the toilet seemed like torture. So I held it up to her as an icebreaker, a token of goodwill. She sneered from behind her crumb laden red lipstick then turned away quickly.

    The gate attendant announced that they would begin seating passengers for my flight, FlINALLY! The announcer called for all parents with children and people with disabilities, the elderly, and children traveling alone to begin boarding. The woman maneuvered herself out of her seat and wobbled to the gate pulling a massive tote behind her, quickly inserting herself into the line.

    I grabbed my things and headed to bathroom. The mixture of bad food and sleeping sitting up made this visit worse than I had anticipated. I rushed back to the gate fumbling for my ticket only to find out that they had already removed the sky bridge and I couldn’t get on. I tried to explain but there was no sympathy from the staff person. To be placed on another flight I was told to contact the airline office on a different concourse… but the snow had filled all the seats for future flights.

    The news stunned me. I gathered up my things and sat in seat looking out the window onto the tarmac. As the plane pulled away the sky turned gray and snow began to fall again. I thought of my brother, how I hadn’t had chance to say goodbye. I thought of the woman and the cookies how I really didn’t care about her eating them, and thinking how desperate and pathetic I must have looked holding that last cookie between us.

    I realized that in that moment I needed more than a bathroom break, just some humanity a person to talk to, even just in passing. The din of the airport surrounded me and I had never felt more alone in my life.

  • Kiddy October 23, 2013, 5:55 pm

    It isn’t an ugly story, loved it and will make sure I let my sis read it to.

  • Kid October 13, 2013, 12:28 am

    Oh… you known.. many things are not the way we usually think…sometimes it helps us to grow!!

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