As a senior at Shawnee Mission West, I am part of the very last class that experienced the fabled melty cookie. After a freshman year filled with whimsical and delightful cookie encounters, I was shocked to find out that they would be discontinued the following year.

To those underclassmen who may be unaware of this legendary time period, allow me to paint a picture of its glory. When looking at them, one may not be able to see anything special. Their somewhat mundane appearance tricked the mind into thinking that you were about to place a regular cookie in your mouth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the method of eating it was different. Many made the crucial mistake of coming at them bare handed; the real technique was by wielding a spoon. They weren’t soft enough to be considered liquid, yet not hard enough to call a true solid. Who knows what sorcery the lunch ladies used to mold such a masterful pile of perfection, but none of that mattered once their creation passed your lips. Unimportant things such as sight and hearing drifted away as an explosion of sweetness and gooey richness made its home in your mouth. The sensation was otherworldly.

There are no words strong enough to fully capture the melty cookie, and the preceding description hardly scratches the surface. Never again will I be able to experience these cookies, and that saddens me deeply. But as they say, it is better to have eaten the melty cookie and lost them than to never have had them at all.