There are the cookies that taste so wonderful I don't care that they were dropped without a cookie scoop. There are the bars with the tiny bits of chocolate, almonds, or butterscotch chips peaking from the edges. I'll refrain from mentioning the biscotti with glaze-drizzled perfection, savory, eyes-roll-into-the-back-of-your-head perfection with every crunchy bite. They bring them all to work, and they are all so tempting to the individual who eats small portions every couple hours during the day. She's just never too full for a cookie—shameful, isn't it?
Well, aside from having an unholy love of my teeth—teeth not particularly fond of sugar—and a family history of diabetes, I don't particularly enjoy them. I enjoy the idea of sweets. It is this idea of sugar that romances me, entices me, and bollixes me until I'm standing at that table with drool collecting on my chin. I reach forth like a two-year-old eager to experience everything. My wide, hypnotized eyes see only fragrant, effervescent pools of pastel with lavender waterfalls floating from above. I wanna be there. This is before reality sinks its teeth into my delicate peace of mind and reminds me that my only ticket there is a broccoli spear or a thick slice of my pumpernickel bread. I'm so uncool. I wanna have sugar-triggered hypertension like everybody else, is that so bad? Enough with this 92/56 crap they read yesterday at the clinic. If I'm not careful, I'm going to die a very old woman. Just gives you chills, doesn't it?
So far there have been but two sources of restraint in my consumption of the noxiously exhilarating foodstuffs, not counting recently brushed teeth, or a mouth full of gum.
No, it's my manners that first kicked in and had me swerving from the table. There was only one cookie left one day, and how I would have loathed to be the one who finished the plate. There's something taboo about eating the last. And I have come to observe, in my petrie dish office chock full of only women, that it is a universal feeling among my gender. A heaping plate of cookies can be whittled down in thirty minutes flat, but that last cookie will last for days. DAYS. Seriously.
It's a little something I call last-one-ism. I think my dear friend Anna has a grand idea when she posted a recipe for ONE COOKIE. Sure, it called for something like a 1/32 teaspoon or something like that, but what serious baker doesn't have one of those, you know what I mean? But if you only made one cookie, can you IMAGINE how long that sucker would last? You'd put it on a pedestal and stare at it for days, letting the anticipation build, and planning the exact moment of your foray into sugardom. Maybe you'd even take a nibble here, a nibble there, savoring every morsel. Maybe, just maybe...if you were female. If you were male, you'd probably thirty-six-isize the recipe and gorge on all three dozen cookies the same afternoon, but I digress...
And the clincher, that which sealed my resistance of the daytime saccharine, was my own brand of sweet, a sweet of a time-sensitive, healthful sort: CITRUS. I crossed the street to the grocery store during my break one morning, and lugged a bag of grapefruit and a bag of oranges in each hand. Just a word to the wise, it's nearly impossible to look graceful with a hefty bag in each hand with arms slightly extended to your sides to avoid bag-collision with your legs, and wearing boots with decently high heels. Oh, and crossing a street that turned really busy while you were buying produce. It's really hard to run with decently high heels and weighted bags in each hand with arms extended slightly. Counter weighting really would suck in such a scenario. Just speculating, of course.
So, deciding not to refrigerate my purchases, the bags sit beneath my desk. I have get through them before they smell, or I'll pay. Eat-em-before-they-rot-ism. It's difficult to think of cookies when you have a stomach full of pith. And, suddenly, cookies, bars, and biscotti are non-issues. My lavender falls have orange sections floating in their cascading streams, and I'm beginning to accept that I'm actually going to have to see old age. Not that I'll look it, naturally. I'm still working to convince people that I'm out of high school. So passes another chapter in my journey toward the completely boring.
