Sweets and goodies are always great, but not necessarily as a dinner. You’d think an intelligent person would realize that a piece of gooey-only last for a minute-supposedly worth dying for-chocolate wouldn’t be worth losing real food over, but apparently at the age of seven I did not come to the obvious conclusion. The thick smog of desired self-indulgence chocked my reasoning and impaired my judgment. This misstep of my childhood has stayed forever implanted in my memories, although it has done little to alter my behavior today. Let me start from the beginning.

The event took place on a spring-timey day, somewhere around noon, during the month of April. Following their daily routine, my little brother and mom had laid down for their nap and at the present time I was sitting crossly in my room, busy sulking like a kenneled puppy deprived of playtime. Being the devious little child I was, I busied myself with calculating my next move. You see the next day was Easter and just like every year my mom had bought some of the best candy the grocery stores could offer. Sweet tarts shaped like rabbits, marshmallows covered with sugar disguised as a row of chicks, and nasty pretend to be edible-medicine tasting-stick between your teeth till you go insane jelly beans. But none of them could compare to the king of all candies. The delicious cream filled chocolate eggs that I had been dying to sink my teeth into for weeks. My mom had stubbornly refused my request for one of the eggs prior to her nap time, and my solitary confinement. I thought for sure a small token of chocolaty-creaminess would be the perfect reward for me being angelic and remaining inside my room for the two hour nap period. But no. She didn’t want me to ruin my appetite for dinner; which I might add was about five hours later meaning the candy would be long forgotten by then. Ha! I was going to show her.

My mission accepted I slowly opened my door, careful to keep the hinges from squeaking, and started down the sunlit hallway. I was on a quest, like a little candy-thieving ninja. I crossed the living room floor, keeping a wary eye on my mom’s door conscience of any disturbances assaulting the silence of my house. Finally, I reached the kitchen. The smooth hardwood floors gave me relief from the painstaking walk needed to keep the living room floor from creaking every few steps. Then the pantry: the final obstacle. My heart was pounding and I jumped at every little noise as I grabbed the cold shiny metal of the door knob, and pulled. The door slid back quietly, revealing my prize- the chocolate egg of goodness. Grabbing the candy in my little hands I moved quickly back to my room and shut the door behind me, a sly grin slid across my face as I took the metallic, dancing bunny wrapper from the chocolate and hid it in a spot I thought was ingenious- my closet. The mess behind the closet doors was so messy mom would never find the evidence! That is where I was wrong, and where the story takes a very different turn.

My mother awoke from her nap and came to get me from my room. Oblivious to the delicious crime I had just committed. Still smug from my victory I strode from the confines of nap time with a smile. Unfortunately, my confident attitude did not last long. For you see at seven and believing I had wisdom and mighty intelligence to spare I must have neglected to actually hide the wrapper in my closet and, alas, my mother found it. I’m sure you can figure out what happened next. I was sat on my rear for a good talking to, you know lots of I’m very
disappointed’s-and-you should know better’s, and sent back to my room with the promise that, since I seemed to think the egg was worth disobeying for, I would get no dinner. Sufficiently chastised, I returned to my confinement, tortured by the smells of that night’s dinner wafting to my room.

This of course did not set well with me considering I had just escaped the awful room and now I was back, laying on my bed in misery while the rest of my family enjoyed TV, freedom, happiness and of course the life sustaining pleasures of food. Tears flooded my eyes as I realized the chocolate egg was nowhere worth the punishment I now had to endure.

I’d like to say that I learned my lesson and I never took food again, but that is only partway true. I still snuck food, still do sometimes- especially when dinner wasn’t my favorite, or even close to edible in my opinion, and so I am slowly dying of starvation as I lay in bed- but I did learn dishonesty doesn’t pay and one piece of chocolate for sure isn’t better than real food, ever.