The rain fell gently just outside the open end of the aging shed where the rusty drag for smoothing over a plowed field awaited another season of planting. My mom’s chenille house coat hugged me gently as I sat on the wide seat, swinging my legs and licking my ice cream cone of raspberry swirl. With no one else around, I had slipped out to the back porch and scooped up my frozen sweet from the five gallon cardboard carton leftover from the church ice cream social.
Tucked behind the rest of the property, the ancient weather-beaten porch, partially enclosed and missing two-thirds of its floor served primarily as a shelter for the cats, a place to hold the deep freeze … and a pathway to my perch. In the solitude of the ancient shelter, I could eat a sweet all by myself with no one to silently stare, reminding me I wore chubby girl clothes. Ahh bliss.
Such secret bliss ended recently for a family member when their spouse reached into the stash of candy and discovered that the expensive chocolates meant to be shared by several more members of the family had nearly disappeared — at the rate of a couple pieces a day. Shocked, disappointed faces stared accusingly and asked “Why did you eat all of it?”
“You need a spanking because you did not share those! You need to apologize for eating all that chocolate,” one of the youngsters pronounced with a wagging finger.
I sympathized with both sides. However, no one ever discovered my yielding to chocolate temptation. They didn’t discover it because only I greeted my neighbor the morning she showed up with freshly baked, dark, chocolate cake – one piece for each member of my family.
I thanked her, placed the paper plate of cake on the counter and mentally declared the evening’s dessert prepared.
It was a good plan – until I could not resist taking just one little taste of the rich, dark frosting.
Delicious.
Maybe I would have just a little corner of my piece of cake and not wait eight hours for dessert. I carefully slid my fork through another bite of the delicacy.
Very delicious.
Ahh, the luxury of rich chocolate. I sighed, turned and walked away to tend to the laundry — only to return a few minutes later to nibble a bit more of my piece of cake. Here a nibble, there a bite and I ate my entire piece of cake.
Well that was it. I had had my share and savored it in peace and quiet without children spilling milk across the table or arguing about which one had the biggest piece.
I began unloading the dishwasher — where I could keep an eye on that plate of chocolate cake.
That chocolate cake whispered my name. I grabbed the fork and relished the flavor and texture of my husband’s piece of cake. I still had chocolate cake for the children to enjoy as an after school treat … until temptation won and I ate one of their pieces.
Washing that third piece of cake down with plenty of cold milk, I decided I would cut each of the remaining pieces in half for dessert that night.
Having grown up in a family where we cut birthday cakes into eight slabs, with one leftover for the birthday child to eat that same meal, I definitely know how to enjoy a good cake. My neighbor’s shared cake, however, nowhere equaled the amount I ate, in one sitting, on each birthday: a fourth of the chocolate cake I requested.
It felt like my birthday all over again as the next three pieces quickly and easily disappeared.
By the time the kids walked into the house, the paper plate, the smell of chocolate and dirty fork had disappeared.
I made something else for dessert that evening. I have no idea what it was, but I’m sure I enjoyed my share plus any extra I could get and then wondered ‘why’ the chubby clothes still fit best.
(With sincere apologies to my family for eating their share of the cake, I am Joan Hershberger, a sugar addict and a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail me at joanh@everybody.org.)