Humor – Page 4 – Straight From the Heart

Daily writing prompt

What’s your go-to comfort food?

My go-to comfort food

My comfort food isn’t food. It’s junk. I know. I’m supposed to eat healthy, and I do, sometimes. But, I’m not much of a meat-eater, so there’s not much else out there but carbs. And of course, I go for the unhealthy carbs, like potatoes, rice, pasta; all those soft and cozy comfort foods.

But sugar is my true love. I have cut back a little. But the only way I can control it completely is when I do intermittent fasting for a few months. That’s how I get clean. And I feel so much better, more energetic and healthier that I promise my doubting self that I’m done with sugar. We broke up, and we’re never getting back together again.

But, like a persistent lover, sugar always manages to wear me down. It promises me that if I just cut back a little, that I’ll be fine. Just eat the recommended portion. Count out six little gummie bears, or eight malted milk balls, and you’ll be completely, one-hundred percent satisfied. Self-control. That’s all it takes.

Self-control? Is there even such a thing these days? I’m an all or nothing woman. Give me the whole bag of caramel chews, or I will go for the throat!

And did I mention ice cream? Don’t even get me started on dairiO Campfire S’mores ice cream. I order three big scoops each time, but I can eat ten. No shame here. I love ice cream. After a hot, sweaty day of mowing for two hours, I can’t wait to head straight to the freezer and grab my fix of whatever sweet little frozen friend is in there.

But I won’t dare mention that I ate a small Domino’s pizza, and an entire box of pull-a-parts, all by myself one evening while binging on Netflix. And I’m never going to mention that I finished all that off with a glass of soda, a box of Milk Duds, and a bag of sweet and sour gummie worms. But I will tell you, that it all came back up as fast as it went down. It was worse than that one time I got drunk just to see what it was like.

Now you know that I’m serious when it comes to my favorite comfort food. There isn’t just one, and I never do anything half-way. But, that last ridiculous, Miss Piggy, pizza and desert episode, made me realize that sugar and I need to break up for good. We need a divorce! But the only way I can see that happening is for everybody and their brother, cousins, aunts, and uncles, and neighbors and friends to stop shoving sweets in my face. And that would mean, no more dairiO! No more pull-a-parts! No more Milk Duds! No more anything! How would I sleep at night knowing all my sweet little friends are gone?

It was just an ordinary summer day when my brother Kenny and I were left home alone while our parents and youngest sibling were grocery shopping. Kenny was seven, and I was eight.

Long before video games, PlayStation, and iPhones, we actually had to sit and talk to each other or play pick-up sticks or ball and jacks or tinker toys or build cabins out of Lincoln Logs.

Well, that particular day, we wanted a little more excitement than that. We couldn’t go outside and play, and playing hide-and-seek in our tiny apartment was like looking for an elephant hiding under the bed.

While pacing the tiny living room floor, I glanced out the window and saw the landlord working in her flowerbed. For whatever reason, mom, and daddy didn’t like the landlords, so I didn’t like them either.

Suddenly, as if being poked with the devil’s pitchfork, I coaxed Kenny into doing something totally out of character for both of us. We raised the window, stuck out our pea-brain heads and yelled, “Hey, old lady Brummel! Hey, old lady Brummel!”

We lived quite a distance away, so I didn’t think she even heard us until she threw down her garden tools and stormed toward the apartment huffing and puffing and smoke pouring out of her ears.

Oh, no! She’s coming to chop off our arms and legs!

Like a cat with its tail on fire, Kenny ran downstairs and locked the door just in the nick of time before she started pounding on it and screaming like the big bad wolf, “Let me in! Let me in! I’m telling your parents when they get home!”

True to her word and to my horror, as soon as the car pulled into the driveway, the phone started ringing.

My mother was the warden at our house. A strict, religious warden that didn’t put up with nonsense and expected her brood to follow the rules or else. And that day “or else” meant that we march our little impudent behinds over to the landlord and apologize!

I’d rather have shoveled a pile of manure in the freezing cold stark naked.

Yes, she made me go, but I made her pay!

Like a bloody battle between the North and the South, I bawled and kicked and screamed as mom nearly yanked my arm out of the socket, pulling and dragging me across the field. By the time we got to the landlord’s house, mom needed a long nap and I needed a straight jacket.

I thought that if I danced around bawling and screaming long and hard enough, mom would give up and take me home. But, oh no! If it meant waiting for the rapture to take place, I was going to straighten up and apologize before I could even think about going home.

Like swallowing a ton of bricks, I finally choked up the words everyone was waiting to hear and never talked my brother into doing anything that stupid again.

But, I just remembered that other time when . . .