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Well, it’s the week after Easter and I refer to this blessed transition as “The Holy Days of Detoxification.” It’s a week I spend praying for mercy to the patron saint of carbohydrates and sugar: Saint Gertrude Hawk.
Overindulging in chocolate makes me ill, but that won’t stop me. I anticipate this demon rearing its ugly head every year and in doing so, the Easter Bunny only packs the baskets full of the crappy, generic, dollar store chocolate. No good stuff or it would never make it to Easter morning. Not even close. But every year I am foiled, as my mother-in-law sabotages me and insists on getting the kids the pure stash.
Evil woman.
The second that stupid solid chocolate ballerina pirouettes into my house, I chew her legs right off her torso. Then, she looks so sad to be maimed that I snap her head off too. When my daughter finds me, glazed eyes and extremities shaking, I rationalize it’s not fair to leave the ballerina a paraplegic, so I tear off her arms and tutu, too. I hand the melted midsection sheepishly back to my daughter, and say,”See, I can stop anytime I want to!” She grabs the remnants of that poor ballerina, looks at me with utter disgust and stomps away, muttering “Twelve-step program.”
Two years ago I ate so much of my children’s chocolate that I broke out in quarter-sized hives all over my body. I went to the doctor claiming ignorance about their origin. But I saw what he wrote on my chart: ‘Patient has issues with chocolate bunnies. Avoid bunnies/avoid allergic reaction.” Everyone has their little dependencies. Mine are just shrink-wrapped and shaped like holiday heroes.
By Easter evening, my children had planned their strategy en masse as they have never come together before. They hid their chocolate from me. Me, the woman who sprang them from my loins. The woman who breast fed them until she was slumped in exhaustion. Me, the woman who …oh, who am I kidding? The woman who would strip their baskets clean of everything but the flammable green grass if I could find them. I caught my son later that night putting the dinosaur chocolate under his mattress. Really? He is 20 years old. Really? I am 52. I was appropriately chagrined. I then said him, “Quick! Look out the window! The Easter Bunny’s hopping away!” The idiot ran to the window. I took his candy, shoved as much as I could fit into my pockets, sprinted into the bathroom and barricaded the door.
When I finally peered out, my three kids were standing with hands on collective hips and disapproving scowls across their faces.
I really was in need of an intervention. I realize it’s inappropriate to suggest that chocolate is like a drug. But really, in my mind, it’s a thin line. If I could mainline it, I would. I think I’d save calories, and dental work, that way.
Isn’t it a shame that I work all year on that stupid diet/way of life crap and fling it all away when Easter rolls around? Who’s it hurting, really? Except my thighs, belly, upper arms and ankles?
And I swear to God, when the doctor asks me this year where those hives came from, I promise to tell the truth.
An allergic reaction to kielbasa.