She's No Betty Crocker

Chocolate chip cookies - the perfect Sunday night treat. All the ingredients were there. I'm ready to make a batch. My Betty Crocker cookbook showed pictures of three different chocolate chip cookies - the first cookie pictured was "too flat" because the butter was likely melted, not softened; the second cookie pictured was perfect,of course; and the third cookie pictured was cakey likely due to the flour being measured incorrectly. My choco chip cookies always turn out cakey, so I followed Betty's instructions on page 5 on how to measure flour (who doesn't know how to measure flour??) and just to be safe, I read about the proper way to "soften" butter, and began my cookie-making journey. Everything seemed to be going well. I just knew these cookies were going to be great. It wasn't until 7 1/2 minutes into the baking that I noticed my cookies did not look like Betty's "perfect" cookie. What did I do wrong!? I measured the flour just like Betty said. I softened the butter just like Betty said. And still, I somehow managed to really mess these up. Mr. G, being the loving husband he is, still ate a couple of them with a glass of milk, but I didn't get the inaugural "MMMMMMMMMM!" from him when he took his first bite, which is how I know when something I make really tastes good. This is a sure sign that three dozen crappy chocolate chip cookies are going to sit in the Tupperware for the next week, untouched, before I throw them away. Mr. G's only consolation after trying desperately to figure out how I could have possibly messed this up was, "Pookie, you just have to practice." Shortly after my cookie debacle and my short bout with depression, my sister called. Surely she would have the answer to my kitchen woes. After a few minutes of trouble shooting the problem she said, "Sissy, you just have to practice." Ppppsssffff. Forget it. I'm sticking to the pre-packaged, fail-proof dough.