practicallyserious

It was an Easter miracle! I finally conjured up the nerve to purchase one of those pillowcase-sized bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs that have been haunting my dreams for the past two weeks!

It happened yesterday. I had visited the drug store with plans to buy some cough drops (I wasn’t even sick—I just wanted to do a little maintenance). Of course, it turned out that in order to get to the Cold/Flu aisle it was necessary that I cut through the seasonal Easter aisle.

No problem,  I thought. Yes, I was aware there would likely be Cadbury Mini Eggs there, that this was their territory, but I figured we were all adults here and we could sort of respectfully pretend we didn’t see each other. Easy. Clean. I took a deep breath and did my best not to look at anything. As a precaution I tried to stifle any and all possible temptation by thinking about healthy stuff. About fitness celebrity John Basedow. About six-minute abs. About everything lean and healthy.

But it turned out I had slightly underestimated the tasty glamor of the seasonal Easter aisle. I found myself surrounded on all sides by glossy pink and purple and light-blue plastic baggies of chocolates and jellybeans and peeps. Dazed, delirious, I made the mistake of taking a quick peak to the shelves at my right and that’s when I saw them. They say on a low shelf, neatly stacked like shrink-wrapped Ikea pillows: those terribly huge bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs.

My nervous eyes darted about the surrounding shelves. I needed some countermeasures and I needed them fast! Perhaps I’d get lucky and this particular drug store would be merciful enough to sell convenient single-serving-sized baggies of Cadbury Mini Eggs. Surely they must exist.

No. There were no single-serving bags. And so my thoughts returned to those hellishly large sacks of chocolate eggs. “Tomorrow’s Easter,” I dared let myself think. “It’s now or never.” And I may have been talking to myself out loud because in the periphery of my vision I’m pretty sure I saw one or two children make a run for it. Well aware that I was already showing signs of Mini Egg madness and I hadn’t even eaten a single Mini Egg yet, I gritted my teeth and made my legs keep moving. Miraculously I escaped the aisle un-tackled by security.

A proud smile played on my lips. Once again I had shoulder-checked Temptation. I was a true master of self-control!

Or so I thought.

Somewhere near where they kept the Zicam zinc cold remedy I discovered there was a pillowcase of Cadbury Mini Eggs in my hand. My body had somehow overruled the judgment of my eat-your-vegetables mind. My hand must have shot out and snatched a bag of Mini Eggs while I was looking at the cheap pink wicker Easter baskets. And, as I playfully bobbed the thing’s weight up and down in my hand, I found that the bag felt good there. It felt real good.

Of course, I figured I’d come to my senses soon enough. I figured I’d toss the unholy thing right back down onto some random shelf on my way to the cash register. But at the same time I reasoned it would do no real harm to hold onto the Mini Eggs for just a while. I found that it was quite exciting to hold something so dangerous in my hand, and I didn’t want the experience to end before it had to. I wanted to try and “last longer.”

To do this I knew I’d have to try and occupy my mind with other things. I’d have to avoid thinking about the Mini Eggs directly, and about the rollercoaster marathon of sugar-rushes and crashes they threatened to bestow upon my entire week. I needed to stay cool, not get too excited.

Later, when I was in line at the register, I was only marginally aware that the purple sack of Cadbury Mini Eggs still hung from my grip like an unconscious baby. I knew I was holding something but I didn’t quite know what it was because I was too busy distracting myself with thoughts about baseball. About wrestling. About foreign politics. I gazed idly at the analog clock on the wall and did some quick calculations. “Seven minutes,” I thought. “Embarrassing. I can do better.” I think my intent was to extend the Mini Egg thrill all the way to the cash register. Only then would I pull out of this sugary, chocolaty fantasy and face the boring, tasteless reality of my weekend. Only then would I allow myself to surrender, to abort.

There were some frightening moments of lucidity when I knew exactly what was going on, and oh, in those moments how I wanted to discard the bag right then and there! I wanted to toss it onto the little shelves of sugarless gum and orange tic-tacs and be done with it! “No!” I muttered beneath my breath. “I will push this Mini Egg tease as far as it can go.” So I thought more about baseball and foreign politics. I started to try and remember long forgotten song lyrics to long forgotten songs.

Minutes later the automatic glass door swished open and I exploded out of the drug store into the parking lot, a broad smile on my face and an undeniable swagger in my step.

“Damn, son!” said an old man hanging around outside smoking a cigarette. “You had yourself an incredible drug store shopping experience, didn’t ya.”

I gave the man a confident, cool wink. In the white plastic bag swinging back and forth in my hand there were three things: 1) a baggie of cough drops, 2) a receipt for cough drops and Cadbury Mini Eggs, and 3) Cadbury Mini Eggs. At the register I had been too busy thinking about steroids and Jose Conseco and Iranian Nuclear Missiles to remember to tell the cashier, “Actually, I don’t think I’m gonna take these.”

And so this year I got my Cadbury Mini Eggs after all. I didn’t let my fears and my insecurities get in the way of true candy love.

And then today, Easter Sunday, with about fifteen Mini Eggs stored in each of my smiling cheeks, I saw one of my neighbors with a Skittles-sized bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs in his hand. “What the hell?” I howled. “So they do have smaller bags of Mini Eggs?!?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “They got these, like, everywhere bro.”

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Check out this post for more suspenseful Cadbury Mini Egg Adventures!