It began as a small and inconsequential act.  Just me fishing around in the candy jar on the receptionist's desk dodging the peppermint and such until I was able to withdraw three bite-sized chocolate pieces.  Just a nice little dessert after a rather light lunch.  Not to appear piggy, I took them back to my office to consume behind closed doors.  There I gobbled them.  Eating is much too delicate a word for what happened to those chocolates.  Not waiting to see if those three would satisfy my chocolate urge, I beat down my conscience and returned to the jar for just three more.  I ate three more and three more and three more until the jar was devoid of chocolate.  It still has all of its fruity tutti and I bet that will all be there next week too.  Why do they even make that stuff?

I'm pretty sure I know why that binge happened.  When I got up yesterday morning and confirmed again this morning, I was darn sure that I'd lost a pound or two.  Just felt like I did.  Right there around my middle I'd dropped some fat.  Very happy, I was.  So happy that I ate three pounds of chocolate to be sure that I had sufficiently sabotaged every gain I might have made.

Now I know that there are people in this world who have never in their lives eaten more than two cookies at one sitting.  I dislike them all and happily do not call any of them friends of mine.  Well, what do you know, as I think about the veracity of that last sentence, I find that my best friend has probably never eaten more than half a cookie in one sitting.  And I am positive without ever asking or being told that she has never missed eating all five fruits and veggies every day while I often substitute ice cream for one of the fruits.

And, more amazingly, how healthful she is wasn't something that I thought about when I first thought about her.  I honestly was surprised to realize that I know and love somebody who has never downed and entire pizza just minutes before hitting the sack ensuring that the gluttonous experience will be an all night one.  I can't imagine going through life having never experienced the quality of nightmares that arise from an overstuffed stomach.  My all time favorite has to be throwing one of my real-life arch-enemies into a threshing machine.   I was sorry to realize that was just a dream.

So I'm back to putting gluttony into the past and moving forward in a positive way.  High fiber, low fat, yadda, yadda.  And I will do that for quite some period of time actually.  But then, once again, along comes the dark side compelling me to offset the salty taste of the jumbo bag of pork rinds with the sweet taste of a quart of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.  Wash that all down with a highball or two and just see how low down rotten one pitiful person can feel.

Sometimes when you start to write a story you have no idea how it will end.  That's this story.  I had no idea I was going to end up focused not just on the food but also on a friend.  Additionally I could have never anticipated the gleeful discovery I made when I shared how I had come to focus on her and her healthful ways.  She owned up to being a closet cookie addict!  Yes indeed!  She bakes a couple dozen cookies every week but she also hides a package or two of store-bought cookies to stave off the fear that she might find herself out of cookies just when she needs a fix the most.   Another reason I love Stevie.   She eats her cookies.