Rep. Denny Heck was in dire need of a cookie, so much so that his scheduler emailed a group of Democratic staffers to ask if anyone had a “cookie source.”
In late October, the Washington state Democrat’s scheduler, Lauren Meininger, sent the email to her Democratic colleagues with the subject line “A single cookie??”
The email read: “My boss is in a sugar zone and really wants a cookie. Does anyone have a cookie or cookie source? I just need the one.” (This on a Capitol campus replete with vending machines and dining options.)
Heck said he doesn’t ask his staffers to complete menial tasks, but said he does, on occasion, ask his executive assistant to get him lunch if he’s working through that meal. When asked about the cookie email, Heck said it was a joke.
“She had brought cookies in, and didn’t save one for me, and I was teasing her and said ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get me a cookie,’” Heck said.
Heck’s cookie interest harkens back to a skit on “Chappelle’s Show” in which Dave Chappelle plays Sean “Diddy” Combs in a spoof of the reality television show “Making the Band.”
In the episode, the Combs character assigns a variety of ridiculous tasks to the bandmates, including traveling to northern New Jersey for a set of left-handed golf clubs and sending the group on a walking quest to Queens to find him a sugar cookie.
“You can be Bad Boy artists here, but if you wanna do it, first y’all got to walk to Queens and get me a sugar cookie,” Combs said.
Dylan, one of the rappers on the show, takes issue with the request, noting he did not get into the music business to be a “sugar cookie getter.”
At any rate, maybe it was all too much for Heck. Last week he announced his retirement, citing, among other things, how the impeachment inquiry “have rendered my soul weary,” he wrote in a Medium post.
Maybe if he had just gotten that cookie.
