About Those Snickers Bars ...

They were a nickel when I was a kid--not the little ones (they didn't even exist). No, the full-sized ones. (Though I will confess the full-sized ones today are bigger than they were in early 1950s' Oklahoma.)

I liked Milky Way better--at first. It took me a bit of a while to grow fond of peanuts, though once I did, I grew more than "fond"; I became an addict.

I had a good role model for that. Till very near the end of his life, Dad would sit and watch football on TV, maintaining all the while a firm grip on a jar of dry-roasted peanuts. He would eat only a couple at a time--prudent, you know!--but by the end of the game, they were usually all gone. And though I loved my dad, he did not share his peanuts very graciously.

I evolved in the same way from smooth to crunchy peanut butter. I ate the latter pretty much every day during my school years--as a student, as a public-school teacher. At the old Saywell's Drug Store (and soda fountain) here in Hudson (RIP), I used to get a bagel with crunchy every morning.

And Snickers have remained an ... issue.

The last few years I've been trying to keep my weight ... decent. (I'm on a med that makes it very hard to do so.) So ... I have eschewed (rather than chewed) Snickers bars, and I rarely now do what I often used to do: take with me to bed a jar of Skippy Super Chunk and a table knife. (Guess what happens?)

I haven't had a Snickers bar in a long time. Years?

And then came Halloween. Our son and his family came over--and with them: enough candy to feed the 5000. I resisted for a good long while.

Then thought I'd, you know, just have one of the little Snickers guys.

First bite of a Snickers (for me) = a sip of beer for an alcoholic. I quickly snarfed three more. Then sent our older grandson, Logan (13), back out into the street to get some more. He returned with a full-size. I was so thrilled I changed my will.

Later, after they left for home and we went up to bed, I saw that Logan had left two more bars on the bed for me. I asked Joyce if she wanted one, didn't wait to hear her answer, and inhaled them both, barely leaving time to remove the wrappers.

Next day--I felt that dire (!) combination of self-disgust and immense post-pleasure high.

And last night? A jar of Skippy followed me up the stairs to bed.

Today I'm going to ... reform. Find (or Found) a Peanut Butter/Snickers-o-holics Anonymous. Get some help. Before I morph into the Pillsbury Doughboy--the peanut-butter/Snickers version.

P.S.--Today, on Facebook I posted this pathetic piece of doggerel:

On Halloween …

I stared with love into the stars—

Then ate a pile of Snickers bars.

I wondered if that glow was Mars—

Then ate a pile of Snickers bars.

I do not drink—don’t go to bars—

But I’ll eat piles of Snickers bars.

I often get annoyed with cars—

But never with my Snickers bars.

I never shot too many pars—

But I can binge on Snickers bars.

Well, Halloween’s just once a year—

A good thing, really—for it’s clear

That it’s not safe to put me near

Those Snickers bars.