Know that old saying “don’t dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want?” Well, apparently, Ben Carson eats for the job he wants. And for that, we begrudgingly salute him. 

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out former brain surgeon Ben Carson wasn’t a smart choice for Housing and Urban Development Secretary. Still, you’d think he might crack open a real estate book before his first day on the job. Or at the very least, read a Wikipedia page?

But apparently not. On Tuesday morning, while testifying in front of the House Financial Services Committee, Carson mistook a basic real estate term for a cookie. Yep, you read that right. When Rep. Katie Porter asked him if he knew what an “REO” was, Housing and Urban Development Secretary and real-estate whiz Ben Carson replied: “Oreo?” 

As any average Housing and Urban Development Secretary knows, “REO” stands for “real estate owned,” as in a property taken over by a bank after — to be honest, I don’t understand REOs enough to describe them. But I’m not the fucking Housing and Urban Development Secretary. Ask me about Double Stuffed REOs, on the other hand…

Now, we can’t fault Carson for being completely unqualified for his job. He is, after all, a member of Trump’s cabinet. But it’s becoming more and more clear that Carson was confused when he got his new gig. Could he have…somehow…thought…that “Housing and Urban Development Secretary” was…a baking position? After all, isn’t that what secretaries do? 

Let’s look at the facts. 

First of all, his wife’s name is Candy. Obviously, Carson has sugar on the brain at all times. 

Then there’s the $31,000 dinette set his wife used taxpayer money to buy when Carson first took the job. A lot of people got upset about this, but where else were Ben and Candy supposed to eat all those Housing and Urban Development cookies they’ve been baking?!?

And who can forget the time Ben and Candy taught us how to cook coconut spinach on Fox & Friends? All you’ve got to do is put some coconut in your spinach? Who would’ve ever thought of that? The resident Housing and Urban Development Secretary culinary wizard, that’s who!

But that’s not all. Gleek managed to obtain the smoking gun that proves Ben Carson thought he was the official White House baker. That’s right, we have a “cheat sheet” of terms Carson’s been using since he became HUD Secretary. 

A few EXCLUSIVE excerpts, in Carson’s own words:

• “Contingencies” refer to chocolate chip cookies that must be approved by your parents before you can eat them.
• An “offer” is what you call an oatmeal cookie, as in a cookie you might offer someone, which they can accept, or more likely reject and counter with a different cookie request.
• Wait, did you say “pre-approved letter,” or did you say peanut butter cookie? I thought so. A peanut butter cookie is the kind of cookie that helps you determine how many other cookies you want to eat.
• Yes, I know you said “amortization,” but what you meant was Amaretti di Saronno, an Italian cookie that combines the idea of biscuits and macaroons, so it’s like eating two cookies in one.
• You say “realtor,” I say rum ball.
• “Foreclosure” is just a fancy way of saying fortune cookie, because it’s the kind of cookie that forces you to put your fate in someone else’s hands. Like I did when I took this job that I clearly don’t understand at all.

Well, there you have it, folks. Ben Carson might be a terrible Housing and Urban Development Secretary, but he sure knows cookies. That’s something we can admire, at the very, very, very, very least.