Damn you for being so cute!

There's an adorable little girl -- I'd guess her to be about 7 -- at my el stop each evening. She and her mother are selling wretched Otis Spunkmeyer cookies (packaged for vending machines, not fundraising) for $2 each.

This kid looks like my niece did at that age. Very serious, a little pudgy, less than perfect teeth, oozing sincerity.

I hate paying $2 for what I could buy for $1. I hate Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. I even hate their name.* Most of all, I hate that a little girl has to go out to work on a busy street corner with her mom after school.

I've only given in to those serious, bespectacled brown eyes once. So far. But let's face it, she's going to get more money out of me.

*Spunkmeyer? Really?