Guys. We are but a day away from Thanksgiving break, and you know what that means. It's practice for the big one. It's time to get mildly reacquainted with our parents, siblings and pets before this fine university sends us careening out of its gates and into our childhood bedrooms for winter break. Where the heck did time go?
It seems like only last Tuesday I was taking that online drug and alcohol education thing, and here I am, all signed up for classes for the spring semester. I spent the last three months trying desperately to make friends, only to find them all slipping through my fingers and into the unyielding grasp of the ski team. Winter is coming.
Speaking of which, I've been spending a lot of time doing things that don't require friends in preparation for what I know will be a lonely season. When I'm too tired to keep up the solo dance parties (sorry 'bout all the stomping, downstairs neighbors), I resort to reading. But I've found that even a good book can leave me feeling hollow inside. The last few chapters of "A Game of Thrones" (1996) made me so upset that I had a really hard time falling asleep Wednesday night.
But then something awesome happened.
I was all caught up in my winter funk when I stumbled upon not one but two unopened packages of Tim Tams in my closet. I have lived 18 long years, and not once has the Tim Tam Fairy stopped by quite so unannounced.
Now, what in tarnation is a Tim Tam, you may be asking. I'll answer that a Tim Tam is some higher power's answer to mankind's quest to stretch the very limits of the umami taste bud and the surest way to get some very inappropriate noises out your friends at the dinner table. It is also a type of Australian cookie. Pepperidge Farm made them in the United States for a brief spell, but the shelves have recently been replaced with Goldfish and stupid breads.
The Tim Tam is a succulent dessert biscuit comprised of chocolate cream sandwiched between two chocolate wafers and dipped in chocolate. The cream is no ordinary cream. It is, according to its maker, Arnott's, a "delicate mixture of vanilla, butter and chocolate that complements the biscuit base and the chocolate." None of that white Oreo spackling paste. The Tim Tam on its own is delectable, but a true connoisseur knows that there is a proper method for extracting optimal greatness out of it.
Behold the Tim Tam Slam: You bite off diagonal corners of a Tim Tam and use it as an impromptu straw for sucking through hot chocolate. As soon as the hot chocolate makes its way to your tongue, you feast. The entire cookie will melt in your mouth in an orgy of chocolate and warmth and ohmygodwhatdidIjusteatandwherecanIgetmore. I cannot overstate how awesome it is.
My stash is good until Jan. 16. There are 22 cookies between the two boxes, so if you factor in the eight to 10 that I will inevitably eat myself, that leaves at least 12 new friend opportunities. I have maintained friendships based solely on my access to Tim Tams before, and I'm not above doing it again. Maybe I'm resorting to desperate measures. Maybe I don't care.
So it's not all bad. Winter means hot chocolate season, and JoffreyLannister is only a fictional character. Soon as the weather hits freezing, I'll be slamming. You are welcome to join, while supplies last.
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