The Return of Jamie

Day Three is winding down and I am proud to say that I still have consumed no Cheetos. I am not proud to admit, however, that I may have underestimated the difficulty of this challenge. This morning I got up, brushed my teeth, turned on my music and started kicking around the piles of clothes on my bedroom floor to find something to wear. My thoughts were on what music I'd listen to in the car and more importantly not on Cheetos. That is until I spotted the empty bag poking out of my trash can. I wish I could say that this was the first time I had ever considered eating food from a trash can. I also which I could say that I have only ever considered eating food from a trash can. But as my friends who once watched me eat a loaf of Jimmy Johns bread off the ground can attest, I have eaten my share of dumpster food. I will have you know, though, that I do have standards when it comes to eating what I call "street food". That day-old Jimmy Johns was completely un-munched and wrapped in paper. Plus I ate it from the inside out just to be extra safe. 


Anyway, I had forgotten about the one bag of Cheetos I had eaten last week (okay it was five bags) and the bag was sitting there and I just knew there were crumbs in there. Delicious, fiery crumbs. And crumbs don't really count as food, right? 


And that's when I realized that inside my head there rages an intense war. My conscious mind knows that if I buy a single bag of Cheetos (a difficult feat in itself since they're always on sale) that I WILL eat the entire bag in one sitting and I WILL feel sick afterwards. But my subconscious tells me that I deserve a cheesy pick-me-up after a long day of napping and baking and napping. It tells me that I will only eat a few handfuls (half the bag at most) and save the rest for later. My subconscious is a liar. And a clever one at that. Jamie (yes I named my subconscious in the sixth grade) has no small store of trickery and deceit which she expertly uses to get what she wants. Which is Cheetos. And sometimes a trip to a miniatures museum two hours away (thank you Grimwade if you happen to read this). But mostly Cheetos. And the thing about Jamie is, once I get an idea in my head she will not let it go. Once when I lived in my apartment, I decided that I wanted to make brownies. It was two or three in the morning but once I imagined biting into a warm, gooey brownie and following it up with a cold glass of milk, I had to make it happen. Well, I actually wanted to sleep. But Jamie wanted that brownie and she completely took over. As I was opening the boxed mix, my roommate, who I like to call Pishpun (it's a long story in which I could not properly pronounce "pushpin"), walked into the kitchen. 


"What are you doing?" she said. 
"Nothing."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm hungry."
"What are you doing?"
"Making brownies," I said, trying to sound like I thought it was a completely normal thing to be doing at 3 A.M.
"No you're not." She walked over, snatched the box, and was halfway to her room before I knew what she was doing. 


I ran after her but she had already locked her door. And when she opened it she informed me that the brownie mix was hidden and that I should go to bed. I knew that she was doing me a favor but Jamie wasn't  about to take no for an answer. I whined while she got ready for bed about how I absolutely NEEDED to make brownies RIGHT NOW. And when she turned off her light and got into bed I crawled in after her and proceeded to flop around on the bed like a fish on dry ground saying "Please, please, please let me make brownies!". When that didn't work I stood up and jumped around her singing a song about how I would die without chocolate. Eventually I jumped and sang myself into a state of total exhaustion and fell asleep. But the point is that I will fight myself and anyone else for what I want until I get it, even when it's not what I want. (Try making sense out of that).

With my two cerebral halves at war with each other, it's hard to maintain very much willpower. While living in the apartment I made several attempts to quit the spicy snack. Familiar with Jamie's tricks, I enlisted Pishpun to help keep me accountable. But as committed as she was to the cause, little Pishpun was no match for my commitment to my dirty habit. I began sneaking Cheetos into the apartment inside my sweatshirt. I hid them under the bed. I ate them in the bathroom with the shower running to hide their telltale crunch. And when Pishpun hid my Cheetos in her sock drawer, I ate the Cheetos and left the bag carefully refolded the way I had found it. 


This morning I did muster the willpower to leave that bag in the trash. But it is now abundantly clear that this is going to be a rough battle. Plus I am getting pretty hungry right about now and that bags of crumbs is still sitting in my room smelling delicious. But I am going to close my computer and go downstairs and eat an apple. I'm just kidding about the apple, but I will go downstairs and count day three as a success. And hopefully this will get easier. But with Jamie around, I highly doubt it.