In the spirit of  "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you," this is a repost of  an early "effort" of mine from 2008.  Three kind people gave it the monkey thumb.  No one left a comment.

Please stop sending little Christmas cookies to the office.  Please.  You know they're sitting right there in the break room next to my office.  I can't help but pass them everytime I need to get coffee or water or use the restroom on the other side of the break room.  Please stop.

You began with other holiday treats:  caramel popcorn, nut rolls, a fruit basket, Frango mints.  I could walk by without too much temptation.  Although by the end of the day, my garbage can seemed to have sprouted Frango wrappings.

But you were just warming up.  I walked into the office last week and you had sent one of those 16-inch chocolate chip cookies smeared with frosting.  Sure, it was supposed to be shared with the entire office, but I knew you meant it for me.  The thing is that cookies that size don't seem to ever be baked thoroughly.  And the frosting always tastes cheap.  But that didn't matter to you.  You knew I would cut a wedge of cookie, then pick up any chips that fell to the side.

I told you beforehand that a couple people in our office have birthdays right before the holidays.  I told you that our office always puts out a basket full of bite-sized candy bars and such near the person's work space to celebrate a birthday.  I told you how often I have to walk the main aisle of our office and that our office isn't that big, so pretty much everyone's work space borders that aisle.  And the basket is sitting right there.

But that didn't matter to you.

Right after Thanksgiving my doctor took one look at my belly and gave me the evil eye.  I've really been doing better since then.  I eat a whole bunch of raw veggies for lunch and try to use my treadmill more often and work and sweat rivers during my Bikram yoga classes.  I lost five pounds in two weeks!

But you sent little Christmas cookies.  A big box of them.  What were there, two hundred little cookies in that big box?  Not anymore.  You've known me too long.  You know I can resist hard candy.  I can resist fancy-flavored truffles.  But not chocolate.  Not chocolate cookies.  Little chocolate cookies.  And you sent a big box of them.

So, I beg you.  Please stop.  Enough for this year.  The office doesn't need, I don't need, anything for New Year.  No more.  You win.  Please stop.  Please.