I can’t believe my willpower is so thin sometimes. Ha! Would that my body were so thin and my willpower a little more chubby! Case in point. For several days, I had been perfect on my diet; then I attended my friend Kathy Mueller’s bridal shower.
If only the hostess had served just cake and punch: I was prepared for cake and punch. I was ready to say casually, “No, thanks.” But no, she had to go and serve a complete gourmet meal. I was not prepared for a complete gourmet meal! I fought myself for a full three seconds. Then I sauntered over to the buffet table, restraining myself from breaking into a dead run, holding in my stomach, trying to look thin, yet dying to indulge.
“I will have only a couple of deviled eggs,” I told myself in a vague, noncommittal sort of way. Ha! I should have stopped and mentally hyped myself up: “Eggs, Rosemary, allow yourself two egg halves. That will be a special treat. Two egg halves, two egg halves, two egg halves.” But no! I stupidly marched headlong into temptation. As I ogled tray after tray of delicious food, my hand reached out, unbidden, for a small scoop of this, a tiny helping of that.
I couldn’t believe it. By the time I came out of my hypnotic trance, my plate was full. Two egg halves, my eye! I ate at least eight (if you consider the ones I popped into my mouth, whole, at the serving table). “Get a grip, girl! Where is your pride?” I was so ashamed of myself, a big fat woman eating whole egg halves while heaping her plate with tons more. But I proceeded to make up for the last few days of dieting. I had two bran muffins, three slices of banana bread, chicken salad, a large serving of guacamole and bean dip with chips, six olives, and fruit salad—thank goodness the hostess didn’t serve dessert! Actually, I would have been better off if she had, for when I left the shower, I felt like a caged tiger. I felt almost crazy. As I walked to the car, I suddenly knew why. I wasn’t through eating!
I wanted, I needed, I craved something sweet! Bingo! I almost felt relief. Hey, I’d gone this far; why not stop and get a candy bar? A candy bar? As in “one”? Suuuure! I ate the Twix bar and three-fifths of a new chocolate bar on the way home. The new one was less than terrific. I would never buy it again. It had five segments. But did I stop at one? No. Even though I wasn’t too fond of it, I managed to struggle through two more segments before I said audibly, “I don’t even like this candy.” I put the last two segments back in the sack, back with my extra-large Baby Ruth and extra-large Butterfinger. (They sure named them right: you buy extra-large, you become extra-large!)
Well, I downed those two extra-large bars immediately upon entering the house and locking myself in my bedroom. I did my usual hide-the-evidence trick. I put all the candy wrappers back in the sack and twisted it so it looked like garbage; no one would ever look inside. I was about to toss the evidence, when suddenly I thought of those two segments of candy that I hadn’t eaten, that I didn’t even like. I had chosen to chuck them when I still had an extra-large Baby Ruth and an extra-large Butterfinger in my hungry little hands. But now that I was candyless, it was another story.
“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad candy bar after all. And I really shouldn’t waste it. I should at least offer it to one of my children.” Suuuure I’d give it to one of my children. I reopened the sack, retrieved the slightly squished candy, and carefully rewadded the sack to cover my tracks. (Thieves are less careful than I!)
I didn’t eat the last two segments of candy that night. I walked into the kitchen, where my children were waiting for me to play a game of Clue. I put the chocolate on top of the fridge. I’d finished my food binge for the night. So why didn’t I throw away that stupid, not-so-tasty piece of hell and misery? I don’t know.
I visited Debbie the next day and had a green salad with low-calorie dressing. I told Mom and Debbie to be good on their diets. Yet, even as I walked out the door of Debbie’s house, I knew my fate. The second I’d said “diet,” a picture of those two slightly squished pieces of chocolate candy flashed before my eyes. Before I had started the car, my mind was made up. I drove home, strode straight to the kitchen, and made a beeline for the fridge. I popped those two sections of candy into my mouth faster than a junkie pops pills. And then—and this just kills me—I made up some pastry as fast as I could.
So, do you think I am sick? Unbalanced? Out of control? Or (D), all of the above? When I phoned Melissa later that day, we talked a little fat. We always do. She told me how hard it is not to eat sweets when she makes them herself. Then she admitted she was nervous about making some chocolate chip cookies for a party at work the next day. I, myself, felt like a runaway train. I knew that if I didn’t pull the emergency brake soon, I was going to crash hard. So I summoned up the courage to blurt out, “Okay, Melissa, if you eat one of those chocolate chip cookies, you have to pay me five dollars. And if I eat one more bite of food today, I’ll pay you five dollars.” Crazily enough, it worked. I had desperately needed something to stop me. I didn’t have the five dollars and I knew I couldn’t lie to Melissa, so instead of eating, I just kept repeating, “Today is the fattest day of the rest of my life.”