Garden Variety Wisdom

This

Trick...

Ate

All

the

Treats...

The Prologue:

Or Why I Should Never Write A Blog On Halloween:

I am lying on a couch in the psychiatrist's office digging for the deep seeded rational reasons for my deeply rooted long suffering obsession with chocolate. Dredging down into my past, my vastly distant past, I think I hear supernatural voices whispering. Yes. Yes, I say. My brothers. This is their fault. I am dressed in a tiara and a flowing cape. I am a princess. My eldest brother is dressed as Baby Huey. He has on long underwear, a bonnet and an enormous diaper. My other brother is dressed as a hobo, a stick resting on his shoulder with a kerchief tied at the end. We are trick or treating. They lead and I follow. Down the alleys, door to door, up the steps and down.

Back in the day, when we carried a grocery sack in one hand and a can for UNICEF in the other. Back in the day when we knew all of our neighbors, and they made us come in for a visit. When they made homemade treats of caramel apples, popcorn balls, cookies, cupcakes and more. Our parents NEVER went with us, as we were kept on a tight rope two blocks North, South, East and West of our home. Still, by the end of the night the bags were full.

Not for long, The minute we walked through the door, my brothers would pull me into their bedroom and empty out the contents of all three sacks to sort. Into piles. I was too young. And too tired to recognize their criminal intent. Three piles. Guess who ended up with the candy apples and the popcorn balls and the jawbreakers the size of your fist? Me.

But I had youth on my side and I promised to get even. So, on the night, the Hallowed night when they were no longer young enough to knock on doors, I did. And to insure against looters, I ate the contents of my bag, on the way home. All of it.

I was very very animated, gooey and sticky fingered and very very very sick. But the damage was done. The tricks, the treats, the sweets linger on my tongue to this very day. So much so that when it was my turn to answer the knock at the door in my very own home, I made sure I bought candy I would never ever eat.

YOU KNOW...YOU CHEAT TOO...

The boxes of Dots, the bubble pops, the Tootsie Rolls,

the anti-chocolate sweets.

However, times do change and now we live in a neighborhood where throngs of kids we have never seen plus some that shave and can drive a car, come lurking at night carrying pillowcases.

Pillowcases! No more homemade treats and they sneer and threaten if you don't have the GOOD stuff. But I kept my oath. Until this year. I made the mistake of taking my husband with me when I bought the candy and before I could say Boo!, we owned a cart full of oversized bags of...of...

Kit Kats...M&M's...Almond Joys...Baby Ruths and Snicker snicker snicker...Milky Ways and Mars Bars...Twix and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and and and...I opened the bags, I emptied the contents into the kettle...I paused in hallowed reverence...oh...I'll have just one...

And then...andthenandthenandthenandthenandthen...

My spine is tingling. My hands are quivering. I am typing about 450wpm fueled on high octane one hundred proof chocolate. The floor at my feet is a sea of discarded candy wrappers. The adorable black kettle with purple stockinged witchy feet sticking out from under...is empty.

Here next to me and NOT where it SHOULD BE...

Next to the front door, ready and waiting for the little goblins and ghouls parading down the street.

The porch light is OUT.

My desk light is on and I am wearing a pair of glittery pink flamingo sunglasses and my pajamas. I am both glittery and jittery at the same time. It is my fault. I accept all the blame. If we have a power failure I am sure that if I stick my big toe in the socket, I can power the entire electrical grid across town.

I am wired.

Amped.

I should be ashamed.

I am grinning and I have chocolate stuck in my teeth. Hee.

Heeheeheeheeheehahahahahahaha...

Teeheeteeheeteeheeteehee....cackle...cackle...

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

I have out my calculator and am assessing the damage and by my calculations, the snack size candies have one tenth the calories of a full size bar so I have truly only consumed about...my vision must be getting blurry from all the sugar as there are a bunch of numerals in a rather long string...

3,245,968 calories.

Oh well, that just means about 2,349,762 extra laps in the pool and about twelve years on the Atkins Plan...

...until I am a mere apparition of my former self.

Self.

Control.

Control Of Self...

We ALL lose it once in awhile.

What flips your switch?

While you ponder that question, I need an intervention.

Just before eyes closed and the coming of sleep,

I'll just sit here in my Flamingo sunglasses and see what's on the radio…