Rolled Sugar Cookie Fiasco

OK, so people show up all the time with sugar cookies in the shapes of cute little characters. They are all over Kroger's, all over television, all over everything. So, you know, should be easy, right? Rolled sugar cookies. Got it. Let's get rollin' (no pun intended).

I get my recipe for my Halloween Ghost Sugar Cookies from Southern Living. You definitely cannot go wrong with Southern Living. I mean, it's the staple of the baking world. Dive in, no questions asked...And then something's not quite right. I am not exaggerating when I say that I could knock JD out with the dough. And that's before it's refrigerated for an hour. Now, don't get me wrong: I was tempted to slam JD upside the head, but I did not test out my theory. As frustrated as I was (and JD was in nearest striking distance), I utilized the coping skills I teach my clients every day and took a deep breath and tried option B: the recipe on the back of my cookie cutter packaging. They turned out light and fluffy:

And then just to see what would happen I rolled and cut, with great difficulty and heart-ache, the first recipe. They turned out, well, less fluffy:

Luckily icing was uneventful, and most of the cookies actually resembled ghosts. In the end, both of the recipes worked out. The first looked (and felt) more like shortbread cookies, and the second looked (and felt) like real-life actual sugar cookies. All were eaten and presumable enjoyed by all (well, at least JD and work associates).

Lessons learned:
1) You CAN go wrong with Southern Living (if they misprint the amount of butter needed).
2) Rolled sugar cookie baking is not for the feint of heart.
3) Random acts of violence do make you feel better, but will ruin perfectly decent cookie dough.