The joy of guilty pleasures
What is your guilty secret? Is it watching a less than intellectual television program? Does “My mother, the Car” and its ilk ring a bell?
OK, I confess to watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but that was only because of David Boreaneas’s character, Angel.
Is it enjoying a fat, salt and sugar filled delight? I know a gal who heads to Wendy’s after our Weight Watchers meeting to enjoy the guilt of over- the- top points. “The guilt adds some spice to the meal,” she says. I have heard that if no one sees you eating such foodstuffs, the calories don’t count.
Truth be told, every once in a while I do scarf down a donut. I know I shouldn’t, but they taste so good. I do have standards though. The donut has to be a good one and eating said sweet has to be done discretely. Of course I then have to starve for a day or two or walk to Syracuse and back three times so that I can go to my Weight Watchers meetings with head held high. I am my own worst enemy.
What about slogging around the house in your PJ’s all day, snacking your way through a pot boiler book that is on no best seller list? One of those bodice ripper books? Why not? Have you ever read a Christine Feehan potboiler? Takes your mind off donuts.
I have a friend who confided to me that she hasn’t cleaned her oven in 10 years. She now can only bake one cupcake at a time. And then there is the gal who is renowned for her baking prowess who told me that she uses box cake mixes. She adds that she “doctors” them up. She has pledged me to secrecy. So I am not telling you who she is. You will have to guess.
Once in a while, when I am very lazy, I will use premade pie pastry. I always use box cake mixes. I have no reputation to protect. OK, there is one cake that I pull together when I have had a full night’s sleep and nothing hurts, but given those variables, that happens about once every five years or so.
I will readily tell you that my special brownies are made from a box with some finagling with the other ingredients. I use distilled spirits for the liquid, a tablespoon of instant coffee granules, a pinch of cayenne, a half bag of dark chocolate chips and a handful of dried cherries to the mix. With an ordinary Texas sheet cake frosting added immediately after I take the brownies out of the oven, I have my special brownies. They are pretty good. No guilt unless I eat one. The calorie count for these babies is astronomical. But then, again, if no one actually sees you eat one?
Guilt doesn’t always have to be about food. It can be about just being unprogrammed, a day when you don’t make a list, drink too much coffee, watch a little or a lot of TV, putter around the garden, put the vacuum in the middle of the living room floor to give the impression that you have been working…and making sandwiches for dinner … or better still, going out for dinner.
Taste is another place where guilt can hide. There was once a picture of who I thought I should be, what I should like and do. Clothes, home décor were concepts that had to fit into that vision. All in all, with the exception of the clothes, maintenance of weight, suitable hair styling and lawn care, it worked out well. For years, I bought tastefully appropriate Christmas cards. They fit into that vision of who I thought I should be. Underneath that vision were the memories of little girl who loved the glitter covered Christmas greetings. I can feel her joy even now. But send a Christmas card with glitter? Not this gal.
Today I bought a box of 40 cards , each covered with glitter. A little guilt or should I say better, a lot of guilt to send out quite soon. Guilty, guilty pleasure.
And, then there is the other kind of guilt. I have never, or at least almost never have said “no.” I thus find myself overscheduled and stressed out, each day a new opportunity to fall of the diet wagon, let something go too long, not complete a task as I had planned and lie in bed at night counting up my failures…my guilt. Last night I was up at 2 a.m. folding laundry.
None of these things are pleasures. So, I am here and now vowing to find more of the guilty kind to balance out the other.
Today I can feel the waves of guilt lapping at the breakfast stool as I sit here in my ratty old bathrobe and PJ’s, drinking my second, on my way to my third cup of coffee, intending to do much of nothing once I finish this column. A guilty delight on a Thursday morning. No, it’s not sneaking out to loll around a pool enjoying an adult beverage when I haven’t done the laundry, but it’s the best I can manage. I salute the joys of guilty pleasures.
