We’ve all seen the sign — “OPENING SUMMER 2023” — but I just checked my calendar, and summer 2023 was at least a month ago. So why hasn’t the new Blue Chip Cookie Store location opened?
To find out, I sat down at Cookie Store’s old location (gross), ordered a latte and got to work.
I googled for five minutes to no avail before looking at the cup my latte came in. There it was: Blue Chip Cookie Store was established in 1989. This was a lead, and I had to follow it. Also I was getting really bored with the whole investigating thing.
I ordered another latte and got back to it.
But as I was about to resume searching, I realized that 1989 was a dead end since history only started happening after I was born in 2002 (yes, it was a cultural reset; no I’m not sorry about it).
But then it hit me: 1989 is the name of Sautélor Swift’s most mid album — mid, like Mid Appétit. It was a sign.
I listened to every song, simultaneously of course, but even Swift herself said nothing about a “cookie store” or a “chip.” I’d hit my second dead end.
So I ordered another latte and dropped a tab of acid.
The walls of The Nest were starting to line up real nice, so why couldn’t I find anything online? I needed a new approach.
Other patrons enjoyed overpriced coffee and pastries around me, and no one seemed to care about my fruitless search. Suddenly, all their bites synchronized. They ate in rhythm, all lined up at table after table. There was a beautiful pattern to it all, one clearly planned in advance.
These weren’t students and faculty. They were actors creating the illusion of a cookie store.
I crushed my fifth latte, and it hit me — maybe there is no Blue Chip Cookie Store.
Immediately, I threw a sixth latte into the face of the person sitting across from me.
She was my best friend, Emma Gruyere, but was she really? Was Emma, if that’s even her real name, actually a secret Cookie Store plant?
“Whoops,” I said, playing it cool.
“WHAT THE FUCK,” she shouted.
Rude.
Now I was certain everything had to be staged. A real friend would have bought me another latte rather than shouting at me.
I got up from the table and bought another latte to console myself. By the time I returned, Emma had left, her jig up.
I tossed a baggie of shrooms into my latte.
There were parents, children, depressed students. I was surrounded on all sides. Nothing was making sense. The walls started to cave in.
Wait.
Walls?
Like the wall hiding the new Blue Chip Cookie Store construction.
Of course. It was where this all began — everything lead back to the wall.
I bought another latte and headed to the wall. With six shots of espresso in my system (I chugged another latte for the road), I was confident I’d be able to scale it no problem. Years of not watching other students stomp the wall while rushing to class had prepared me for this moment.
But I was being followed to the wall — students, adults, children for some reason — they were all onto me. I threw my latte on the ground, buying myself precious seconds to scramble up the plywood.
My hands met the top, immediately covered in splinters, but I couldn’t feel anything (on account of all the coffee I drank). I poured a spare latte behind me for good measure and slumped over the wall.
Then nothing. Black. No Cookie Store.
Until... I came to.
The Nest was quiet and dark — clearly the perpetrators of this coffee cover-up had fled the scene.
I looked up and saw it written in big red letters. Of course!
Blue Chip Cookie Store was just the first step disguising a far more sinister plot:
Pi[e]r² — robots.
The caffeine crash was fast approaching. I tried to drink a latte I’d stored in my pocket, but I wasn’t fast enough. Sleep overtook me, bringing nightmares of a robot apocalypse and a seminar discussion group pairing with a Singe date.
I’m writing this from the old Blue Chip Cookie Store location, pretending to be just another naive customer drinking their latte, but I know it’s too late for me.
Get that coffee if you dare, reader, but know that there will soon be no Blue Chip Cookie Store.