Today I want to talk about why I'm glad the Easter season is over. But first, I'd like you to take a Deseret Morning News BONUS QUIZ!
Please answer "yes" or "no" to the following questions.
1. Have you ever made your husband leave an event the two of you were attending early so you could get to ShopKo before it closes?
2. And did you, in fact, arrive at ShopKo just minutes before it closed?
3. Did you then race through the parking lot in your high heels and also pantyhose so you could slide inside before the sales associates locked the doors?
4. Even though you have worked retail yourself and KNOW from direct personal experience how MUCH sales associates hate hate hate it when customers blithely slide through doors in high heels and pantyhose right before closing time?
5. Those friendly smiles on the sales associates' faces don't fool you for a second, right?
6. That's because you have NOT forgotten what sales associates secretly want to do to latecomers ("say mean things about," "smack around," "pull hair of," "pinch," "drop kick," "take behind Dumpster and execute at crack of dawn," "cause runs in pantyhose," "other assorted revenge fantasies"), have you?
7. But here's the deal. YOU. SO. DO. NOT. CARE.
You absolutely know that you will not survive the night unless you have a fix of Brach's Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (made with pure! milk! chocolate!) right before you go to bed and that ShopKo ("also see the Target in Centerville") is one of the few places around that carries them. Which is why you dragged your husband away even though he was in midsentence so the two of you could make it to ShopKo before closing time. (Not that he wants Brach's Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs for himself. It's just that at moments like these, he's powerfully afraid of you.)
OK. If you answered "yes" to questions 1-4, "no" to questions 5 and 6, and noticed that (technically speaking) No. 7 isn't a question, you clearly understand HOW IT FEELS to be caught up in the jaws of an all-consuming Food Obsession.
You also know that when an FO ("key lime pie," "beef tacquitos from El Azteca in Provo") strikes, there is nothing you won't do to satisfy it. Am I right?
Honey, you will drive to the ends of the Earth (especially if there's a ShopKo there), because nothing can satisfy a craving except for the exact thing you want, i.e. Brach's Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs. Preferably the white ones.
Oh sure. There are other free-range malted milk egg products out there. Whopper. Leaf. Cadbury. Bah! Pretenders! Eating those is like drinking flat, warm, caffeine-free, diet Dr Pepper when what you REALLY want is the real thing. In a can. Chilled to just this side of frozen. Yet not quite frozen. Because then that would be TOO cold.
Bottom line: faux malted milk eggs simply will NOT do.
Which is why you keep making late-night runs to ShopKo. It's the same every Easter. When it comes to Brach's Fiesta Malted Milk eggs, you have no willpower. The only thing that will save you from yourself is that (mercifully) they're seasonal. ...
E-mail: acannon@desnews.com