There are three things in life I've always been 100% sure of: the world is round, the sun sets in the West, and 'C' is for Cookie. What happens when the world turns upside down and our beloved friend is no more?

Sure, he'll still have the blue fur and picture-perfect smile, but what good will that do him when he has no cookies to eat? 'Moderation is the key.' That's what the cookie-haters are trying to get across. So what exactly does that mean, gobbling one plate of cookies and not two? One has to wonder if that is even healthy for our furry friend. He has been living on cookies for so long, what will happen when the government drastically decreases his cookie intake? Will his health go hay-wire and his fur turn gray? And if they are trying to get Sesume Street to be completely healthy, would scarfing down any number of platefuls of cookies really be the greatest thing to be teaching?

These are the real important questions to ponder while Cookie has to take the unbelievable amounts of stress that comes with being the Cookie Monster. It's remarkable, really, how he deals with it all. The blaring lights, the amazingly limited vocabulary that he must endure(never once did he mess up a single line), and the fact that he has been pushed to the background like yesterday's old news is unacceptable. Yes, he used to be the big monster of The Street, along with Big Bird. Then, as one anonymous person said ''the whole Bert and Ernie thing caught on, and ELMOpalooza took hold.' I mean really, how much can one monster take? They took his pride, they took his dignity, and now they want to take his cookies too? If parents did their job instead of relying on television to do it, none of this would have happened. The Cookie Monster was not available for comment.


'Cookies are a sometimes food' is supposedly what Cookie is going to convey when they change him' yeah, right. That's like having Oscar the Grouch being squeaky clean and Miss Piggy wearing a size two. If the government really wants children to see vegetables as a good food, they will not replace cookies with vegetables. From a child's point of view, that's like saying 'If you have vegetables, you may not, under any circumstances, have any cookies.' Then what is a kid going to choose? I'll give you a hint, it starts with 'C' and ends with 'ookie.' Replacing the Cookie Monster will drive the kids farther away from veggies. If they really want to have some sort of an impact on their opinions, than they will not replace the Cookie Monster. They have Captain Vegetable, right? So why change sweet old original Cookie? And if they must make the Cookie Monster portion of the show healthier, then, at the very least, make it so that the original Cookie Monster is not changed. Maybe Cookie could have a long lost cousin who is as obsessed with vegetables as he is as about cookies, and the cousin could be really buff and handsome with shiny hair to show the benefits of eating healthy. Or maybe whenever Cookie decides to eat a vegetable he becomes 'Super Veggie' or the 'Veggie Monster' and he turns green. Although I honestly can not see any child liking a something name Vegetable Monster, but who knows?

The bottom line is that looks can be deceiving, and if they truly follow through with changing Cookie's outlook on the very thing that is essential to his existence, then he will not be the same monster he once was, no matter what they say. As one person phrased perfectly, 'Our round blue friend will be gone forever and we will long to hear the words 'Did me hear somebody say cookie?' But 'Tha Street' will be silent except for our sobs.'