I think it’s one of my mom’s favorite stories. It involves me, a cookie and coffee – three things that I’m sure you’d never put together.

You can laugh now.

I was about a year old, eating dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, when Grandpa pushed his plate away and got up. So I pushed away my plate and fidgeted in the high chair. Grandpa poured himself a coffee – black – and grabbed the box of Nilla Wafers. He sat the mug and box down on the table, lifted me from my chair and sat down, with me in his lap. He pulled a Nilla Wafer out for me and took a sip of his coffee. When he looked away, chatting with my parents and Gran, I decided to dip the cookie in the coffee. After all, who wouldn’t do that?

The cookie came out a soggy mess. I still tried to eat my treat, squishing what was left between my fat baby fingers and bringing them to my mouth. As my mom tells it, I had brown “polka dots” on my pink dress and Nilla Wafer paste in my eyebrows, ear and underneath my tiny nails. Oh, and I had a big smile on my face.

From that day on, it was always Grandpa, me and the Nilla Wafers. And, of course, the coffee. Black. Always black, even to this day. Anytime anyone requests cream, like that officer in the kitchen of the bakery, I think of that story. I think that if a little tot could handle black coffee so should a grown man.

But maybe that’s just me.