Crime Eggs- 'Tis the Season

This is an oldie but a Goodie, first written as a note on my Facebook page in 2009.  I've learned very little about moderation in the last four years.
  
In a serendipitous response, a friend of mine saw a mother lode of Cadbury Creme Eggs at Wegmans not long after this post, and took a picture of them and sent them to me with the caption: "April-Crime Eggs for you!" It was an auto-correct slip-up, but we all agree- unless a grown-up  rations out the Creme Eggs to me one at a time, and hides them where I have no hope of finding them, when I see Creme Eggs, it turns into a crime scene. So Crime Eggs it is, because I think nothing of murdering three or four (or more) at a sitting and then going back for more.

I have a little problem with Cadbury Creme Eggs, meaning the kind of problem that I probably should wear a Chocolate Detector Ankle Bracelet and have Jenny Craig parked at the end of my driveway ready to throw me in a van and drive me to an undisclosed diet center if I exceed one Creme Egg a day.

So one Friday a few weeks back, I got up and did my usual routine of working out for an hour, showering, getting around, and coming downstairs for breakfast. Shane doesn't work on Fridays, so he was a little while behind me, coming down the stairs. So, I fixed myself a bowl of coffee, half-caf, with skim milk, a little sugar to take the edge off, and a healthy dollop of Reddi Wip, because coffee should be fun, after all. And what to eat alongside my big bowl o' joe?

On the counter, at that moment were: a bowl of Granny Smith apples, BSN Lean Dessert Protein Powder, and...

A four-pack of Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Guess what won? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't the apples, and I didn't whip up a protein shake.

In the space of five minutes, I'd devoured three of the four Creme Eggs in the box on the counter. The only thing that saved that last Creme Egg in the box was that I'd heard Shane coming down the stairs, and as he's a dentist, he tends to frown on Creme Eggs and candy in general, but gets really high'n'mighty when it's eaten for breakfast. So I hurried to get rid of the colorful foil evidence, and stood there at the kitchen island, eating the whip off my coffee as nonchalantly as one can with that much fat and sugar coursing through one's veins that early in the morning. Shane proceeded to get into the refrigerator, take out some eggs, and make himself an omelet. He did ask if I wanted one too, and I told him I'd already eaten.

Fast forward a couple hours, to Main Street in Wellsville. We've been killing time that morning, waiting for Rozzie to get finished and dried from her monthly bath at the vet's. We're not too posh to bathe our own pet, but she has a skin condition that requires their shampoo and a shot every few weeks, and as we live about 25 minutes from the vet's and it was one of those many days in the winter when about a foot of snow dropped out of the sky overnight, we didn't want to be running back and forth between Wellsville and home any more than we needed to. So we were trying to decide where to go to eat. It was too early for lunch, but I said I was starving, without even thinking.

"You said you already ate breakfast," Shane said.

"Yeah, I had a three-egg omelet," I said, again without thinking. I should learn to think before I speak, I guess. Because Shane stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk, and looked at me funny. I should have just yelled "anarchy!" and run down the street right then, but I did not.

"Where'd you get the eggs for your omelet?" he asked.

"Out of the carton in the refrigerator," I said. I was already committed to the lie and had to follow through now, because they send people to rehab for things like this.

"The carton I brought home last night?"

"That's the one," I said. "Three eggs, right out of that carton you brought home last night."

Shane shook his head in disbelief and grinned.

"Well, then, I bought a magic carton of eggs at Jubilee last night, because when I opened it up to get eggs for my omelet, all twelve eggs were in the carton, still."

I knew I'd been caught.

"Yeah, about that," I said. "What I really meant to say is that I made myself a three-egg omelet with the Cadbury Creme Eggs on the counter, and I didn't so much make an omelet as I just ate them, one right after another, right out of their wrappers."

"What stopped you from eating the fourth one?" Shane asked.

"I heard you coming down the stairs."

Shane looked a little disgusted, but also amused. No van from Jenny Craig pulled up to whisk me off, but I noticed in any store we went into that morning, I was propelled past the Creme Eggs displays, and when we finally picked up Rozzie and got home, that lonely Creme Egg from that morning had disappeared.

That wasn't my last tangle with the Creme Egg Monster, though. It's a tough addiction to kick, and there is no 12-step program.

In a completely unrelated note, I'm working on losing about ten pounds that seems to have appeared out of nowhere these last few months, so if you see me out shopping and I'm in the candy aisle or eyeing the Reese Cups in the checkout lane, stop me. Use whatever force necessary. I'll thank you later.