There’s a new craze sweeping Isla Vista. In case you haven’t heard, the cookiewich from I.V. Drip is the hottest thing since alcohol getting you drunk. The cookiewich is exactly what it sounds like: a cool scoop of ice cream sandwiched between two freshly baked cookies. The concept of a cookiewich is nothing new, but before it arrived here, the dessert scene in I.V. was sorely lacking; you can only eat so many Otter Pops. Once you try a cookiewich, you’re hooked; you’re always yearning for your next fix of crackwich. The best part is the price. At only $1.50, you can finance it with a couch safari. Plus, the Drip gives you change in fifty-cent pieces and two-dollar bills, the Siegfried and Roy of U.S currency – unique, but also sort of fruity.

The cookiewich has a long and storied past, dating far back into human history. The first cookiewiches were drawn on cave walls 35,000 years ago in France by cavemen who made them from glacier ice and saber-toothed tiger paws. The pyramids of ancient Egypt were not tombs, as is popularly thought, but actually giant refrigerators for keeping cookiewiches cool in the scorching desert sun. The purpose of the giant stone circle at Stonehenge has remained a mystery for hundreds of years, but two competing theories have been proposed: Hungry archaeologists argue that Stonehenge is a circle-shaped monument to the cookiewich, while horny archaeologists contend that Stonehenge represents the female sex organs. Drunken archaeologists think it’s both.

The cookiewich is also mentioned in the Bible in the famous feeding of the five thousand. Jesus needed to feed a large crowd of his followers, but he only had four cookies and two scoops of ice cream. In Mark, the bible says that as Jesus was “Looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and broke the cookies; and the ice cream he divided among them all. And they all ate, and were filled. And they took up the broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also the ice cream. And they that ate the cookiewiches were five thousand men.”

After the decline of the Roman Empire, knowledge of the cookiewich was lost and Europe fell into the Dark Ages; it wasn’t until the Renaissance that it was rediscovered. During this time, Leonardo da Vinci painted the “Mona Lisa,” and most historians agree her famed mysterious smile is the result of a particularly satisfying cookiewich.

Later, the Pilgrims would leave Europe for the New World so they could eat cookiewiches without interference from the Church of England. One hundred years later, the United States was founded on the principle that “All Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Cookiewiches.”

After World War II, rising tensions with the Soviet Union caused a tactical dessert race. The two superpowers each possessed technology for an atomic cookiewich. Fortunately, each side was deterred from deploying them by the threat of Mutually Assured Deliciousness.

Unfortunately, the cookiewich has also brought tragedy. In 1997, Chris Farley and the Cookie Monster were found dead in Farley’s apartment, both victims of a fatal overdose of morphine, cocaine and cookiewiches. Friends noted their hard-partying lifestyles: Farley had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, and Cookie Monster was never able to take his own advice that “cookies are a sometimes food.”

With all the current troubles in the world – genocide in Darfur, civil war in Iraq, fog in Santa Barbara – it’s good to know that the cookiewich will always be there. The winds of fortune seem to follow the cookiewich. Once, after eating one, I discovered an open parking space on DP. Another time, a cookiewich miraculously caused my roommates to clean the house. So, I encourage you to succumb to temptation and indulge your sweet tooth. Take solace in the last words of the always-eloquent Cookie Monster: “C is for cookie, it’s good enough for me; oh cookie cookie cookie starts with C.”

David Fuad is a senior law & society and psychology major.

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