I have hang-ups.  In the category of food, I have MANY hang-ups.   Saturday morning I awoke and abruptly decided to quit drinking soda.  This proclamation came out of the blue and with zero planning or forethought (which is how most of my ideas originate).  I have been drinking diet soda for as long as I can remember.  My mom gets her feathers ruffled when I tease her that she weaned me off of the bottle and straight to Diet Rite cola.  Truthfully, I don’t think it was quite that early, but I developed a taste for saccharine at a very young age.  Eventually, my palate matured and aspartame became my cola sweetener of choice.   So many things have changed over the years, but my addiction to caffeine, aspartame and the carbonated sensation has remained solid; unwavering.    As Day 4 of my pilgrimage toward a life without soda comes to a close, I am exploring tactics in which to successfully avoid falling off the wagon.  The following are some of the tactics I have used in the past to compensate for my food “hang-ups”:

1.  I lie.  This is a tactic I use to scare the people preparing my food into making it exactly as I order it.  I resorted to being a big fat liar after ordering things specifically, only to dig in and find a mouthful of what I find repulsive.  I am now regularly ‘allergic’ to mayonnaise, ranch dressing, blue cheese, olives, and sour cream.  I am always one bite away from a potential anaphylactic episode.

2.  I fib.  I fib about my hunger status.  My hunger could be so intense that my large intestine starts to feed on my small intestine, but if the baked potato is drowning in sour cream, I am suddenly stuffed! 

3.  I use my imagination.  There are certain foods that I insist  the devil himself cooks in the kitchens of hell (sinful bastard).   These include, but are not limited to: donuts and Mini Cadbury Eggs.  The devil knows my weaknesses and he tempts me with confections.  He is also solely responsible for hotdogs.

My husband went with the guys to the St. Louis Bilikens basketball game and brought home a box of donuts from John’s Donuts.  ‘John’ must be short for ‘Satan’ because I just looked in the box and knew that he had had a hand in these baked goods.  As we were leaving for school and work the next morning, I told Sophi, “I cannot believe your dad brought those donuts home. Why can’t he just go to a strip club like other guys?”  Sophi looked at me and said, “You are kidding right?”  I laughed and said, “OF COURSE I am kidding” (I was kind of not kidding).

I have no other explanation for the Mini Cadbury Eggs addiction, other than cute little bunnies have been kidnapped and forced into the depths of hell to crank out these little wicked delights.  For the sake of these little bunny slaves, I try to abstain from partaking in the pastel nuggets of deliciousness.  However, about two years ago the Easter season brought an end to their availability and I panicked.  I bought two huge bags off of eBay.  The wages of sin is death.  It was almost death by Cadbury Mini Eggs for me.  I am a sinner.

There is no doubt that hotdogs are made in hell.  Not because I love them or find them delicious. In fact, the opposite is true.  I find them repulsive.  They are so utterly vile they must originate in hell.  That is the only logical explanation.

And so it is that I have completely digressed from the theme of this post.  It may be a side-effect from not having diet soda.  Most likely, it is a side-effect of being me.   Keep me in your prayers, as I am not only a freak about food, a liar, a fibber, and a believer in the notion that Satan is pursing me through confectionery enticements, I am now alone in the world without my one vice.  Should you happen upon a trail of crumbled donuts and empty Cadbury Mini-Egg Wrappers, bring me a cold diet Pepsi.  Falling off the wagon usually makes me really thirsty.