Just Don't Do It

I hope I am not reaching you too late.

You know who you are. You are the ladies who look forward to Halloween more than the children. Any excuse for treats is a good excuse, you know what I mean...

"Oooh, I know children love Almond Joy's, I need to get the king size bag." Or "Reeses Peanut Butter Cups? Need to stock up on those, the little hooligans might egg my house if I don't give them chocolate". "No one likes a house without chocolate bars."

We are all guilty. I know because I use every reason I can to buy "fun-size" chocolate bars. I like fun, I like chocolate, we match. It doesn't help any when they are everywhere, the drug store, the grocery store, Target, Wallmart, Costco. Every day, sometimes twice a day I am faced with the spontaneous desire to stock up on candy bars. This urge is much stronger and for some reason makes more sense than the urge to buy wheat for a years supply.

We aren't fooling anyone, most kids would rather eat a bag of sour patch kids over Twix. It is strange, but give them the choice between chocolate bars or jaw breakers they will go for the potentially dangerous jaw breaker, they live life on the edge. They are odd. It is a definite generation gap. They do not have the consuming need or desire for chocolate, your desire to buy it is for you, not your neighbors kids you don't even like. I in fact find that I save the good stuff for me and give the obnoxious neighbors the bottle caps and tootsie rolls.

Don't do it, do not buy candy you like, if you grab it and put it in your cart - stop - throw it out right there in the aisle with a dramatic toss and a banshee scream. Buy a bag of dum dums. If you already have the stuff in your house it is time to make gift bags for the ladies you visit teach (the skinny ones, let them deal with it) and deliver it right away. Donate it to the Bishop for his candy jar - that is an expensive thing to keep full. Or, if it is a real emergency you can flush it.

You don't need to taste it, you already know it is yummy, you have tasted it before. It isn't like you are embarking on a new experience. (If however you have never had Tobolarone, by all means...) You aren't denying yourself the experience if you have already had it. "Been there, done that" is what you should say.

Treat it like Kryptonite, Poison, "Danger Will Robinson!" Alarms should sound. When you were a kid playing with magnets, didn't you try to see how close you could get them before they snapped together? Ultimately at the end of the experience they become one. We ladies and chocolate are like those magnets, get one king size bag of snickers and us on a bad day and SNAP! we are one. At about 3:00 I find myself hunting unconsciously for the spawn of Satan candy. If it is there and I am there, we always end up together. I would be fooling myself if I invited the stuff into my home and said he was just visiting the kids. NOT TRUE.

When I put my gloved hand into mud I do not say the mud got all glovey (I heard that somewhere and have been dying to use it) , When I put chocolate into my mouth I cannot say the chocolate got all Calamity, I get all chocolaty, I will reap what I sow, I will instantly put on weight (do you know you can gain 5 lbs in just one bad week? - experience teaches me that)

Don't fool yourself, don't do it, just say no - buy the sour skittles, they are nasty, just what kids love.