Soft Molasses Cookies So Good They Justify the Oven Drama even in August

I woke up this morning in my peaceful little alpine ski town to sheriff’s helicopters circling overhead, ordering everyone to shelter in place. Of course. Because this is 2026, and apparently, we are no longer allowed to begin a day with coffee, birdsong and optimism. We begin it with law enforcement aircraft, a stuffed-up nose and the lingering suspicion that the NyQuil I shot before bed was still very much in charge of my brain. Is 7 a.m. too early to shove soft molasses cookies at my face?

Was I still high from the NyQuil after collapsing into bed with my mouth wide open because my nose was 100 percent out of commission? Possibly. Was this a god-awful way to sleep in a bed already overflowing with furry Norwegian Forest Cats? Absolutely. There is nothing quite like trying to breathe through your mouth all night while being gently suffocated by twenty-five pounds of luxury cat hair and judgment.

Of course, my Norwegian Forest Cats are not nearly as fluffy as they were a week ago. Here at over 7,000 feet, summer may not always climb past 87 degrees, but the UV rays are aggressive. Eighty-seven degrees in the mountains feels much hotter than 87 degrees at sea level, especially when you are wearing a full-body fur coat and have the personality of a Victorian widow. Much like me today, my cats get cranky when they are hot, congested and dealing with nonsense. Except their nonsense is fur-related, and mine is COVID rash, bad business bullshit and whatever felony-adjacent drama was apparently happening down the street.

Last week, in a moment of pet-parent brilliance, I gave my fluffy little heat goblins their first summer trim with my new, epically wonderful pet shears. These things are cordless. Huzzah! Do you have any idea how much easier cordless shears make pet grooming? It brought a smile to my face that had not been seen since this COVID rash first showed up three days ago. Truly, can you imagine a future where every appliance is cordless? Extension cords will be gone forever, along with wall-mounted telephones, dial-up internet and manual transmission pickup trucks that were actually fun to drive.

By late morning, my neighbors had apparently decided to stop shooting at each other, which finally allowed me to drive to urgent care and beg for a refill of my steroid rash cream prescription. At this point, I was beginning to look like I had syphilis, mange or a Victorian plague that required leeches and a priest. And that is how I ended up in my very own standoff. Only this one was not with helicopters or sheriffs or armed neighbors. It was me, scratching and oozing, begging the CVS pharmacy to please hand over the medicated cream that stood between me and clawing my own skin off in the parking lot.

The Great Pharmacy Scavenger Hunt of 2026

I truly wish Yelp allowed negative stars because CVS Pharmacy has apparently decided that helping sick people obtain medication is more of a fun suggestion than an actual business model.

I developed a lovely COVID rash that looks like my immune system lost a bar fight. I went to urgent care at 9:00 a.m. My prescription was called in by 9:30 a.m. Thinking this was a pharmacy and not a government infrastructure project, I loitered around CVS until 11:00 waiting for my medication.

At 11:00, I called the pharmacy to ask what was going on. The employee informed me that my prescription was apparently sitting on a truck in the parking lot and would be unloaded sometime that afternoon. Or maybe tomorrow. Whenever. You know, whenever the spirit moved them.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but when someone’s medical treatment is sitting twenty yards away in a parking lot, I tend to think getting it into the building might be considered a priority. Thank God this wasn’t me having to pick up insulin for someone with diabetes or something more urgent.

By 2:00 p.m., my rash was getting worse, bleeding in places, and generally making me look like I had contracted a medieval plague. I finally called urgent care and asked them to transfer the prescription to Walgreens because CVS seemed committed to treating medication fulfillment like an episode of Storage Wars.

The urgent care staff was confused because they had confirmed earlier that the medication was in stock. So urgent care called CVS.

Apparently, My Medication Was on a Spiritual Journey

Miraculously, twenty minutes later, I received a phone call from CVS informing me that my prescription was ready after all. Apparently, there had been a “misunderstanding.” The real issue, they said, was that my insurance wasn’t covering the medication. Excuse me?

How exactly is that a misunderstanding?

Your employee didn’t say, “We’re waiting for insurance approval.”

Your employee didn’t say, “There’s a coverage issue.”

Your employee told me my medication was sitting on a truck and might be unloaded later if the stars aligned and Mercury exited retrograde.

And if the medication wasn’t covered by insurance, why was nobody planning on telling me that? I would have happily paid out of pocket hours earlier instead of sitting at home itching and bleeding while wondering if I needed an exorcism.

The most frustrating part is that I’m not just picking up prescriptions for myself. I also pick up medications for my elderly neighbor with dementia, whom I help care for. Reliability matters. Communication matters. Basic competence matters.

Don’t Cry for Me, CVS Pharmacy

So finally around three in the afternoon I was able to drive back to CVS, wth me belting out ” One Cream More” to the tune of One Day More from Les Misérables in my awesome jeep with my more than awesome brand new BFG K03 tires. You know who knows how to run a great small-town business? Dave, my awesome mechanic.

I work so damn hard, I deserve some awesome tires, the most expensive tires I have ever owned and I say bring it on El Nino, this winter. I am ready for some snow! Also, I think I deserve my damn steroid cream, because come on, local pharmacy, how complicated can you possibly make this? Do I really need to belt out musicals at the top of my lungs to distract myself from the fact that this simple errand should have been wrapped up hours ago? I’m a lot more patient when my skin is not oozing and bleeding. Or when I have a soft molasses cookie in my hand.

After this experience, CVS has lost all of my pharmacy business. Future prescriptions for everyone I care for will be going to Walgreens, where I can only hope the medications are stored inside the building and the employees communicate in complete sentences and do not have the maturity level of high school students

As a grand finale to this circus, when the pharmacy tech finally handed me my prescription, she informed me that the pharmacist wanted to explain how to use it. You better believe I rolled my eyes so hard my COVID headache came back.

I Dreamed a Dream… That My Prescription Was Ready

“Seriously, bro?” I said. “I’ve been scratching this rash until it bleeds all day while you guys move at the speed of a DMV sloth on Xanax. I think I can figure this one out.” At this point, I was fairly confident the complicated medical instructions consisted of: open tube, apply cream to rash, try not to claw your own skin off.

The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Me Itching

I assured them that I possessed the advanced reading skills necessary to decipher the package directions all by myself. Then I planned to apply said medication while driving home in my awesome Jeep, belting out the best of Moulin Rouge and celebrating the fact that after an entire day of waiting, I had finally obtained the prescription that was apparently trapped somewhere between a parking lot truck, an insurance issue, and a complete communication breakdown.

If your pharmacy’s customer service requires intervention from urgent care before anyone can explain what’s actually happening, something has gone very wrong.

By the time I finally got home from my pharmacy hostage situation, I had reached that spiritual level of stress where normal people take a nap, meditate, or make sensible life choices. Not me. I decided the obvious solution was to turn on my oven in the middle of July and bake soft molasses cookies. Nothing says “I’ve had a frustrating day” quite like voluntarily heating your entire house to recreate a Victorian Christmas. Somewhere between the first stick of butter and the second scoop of molasses thrown into my Kraftsman Stand Alone Mixer, I realized baking is cheaper than therapy, less embarrassing than getting arrested, and far more productive than writing a strongly worded Yelp review while scratching a COVID rash. Besides, if life insists on being ridiculous, the least it can do is provide homemade soft molasses cookies.

Soft Molasses Cookies worth turning the oven on for

1/4 cup of molasses

1 1/4 cup of white organic sugar

3/4 cup of Kerrygold Salted Irish Butter, room tempature

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Zest of 1 orange

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 and 1/4 cups of flour

If it’s summertime, leave your butter on the counter for ten minutes to come to room tempature. Then you are reday to start creating these soft molasses cookies! Cream together your room temp butter, sugar, orange zest and molasses. Add in the eggs and vanilla, then the dry ingredients. Scoop out balls of dough onto your cookie sheets and bake in your Preheated to 350 oven for 11-13 minutes until just set. Summertime soft molasses cookies are served!