Nov 10, 2023 4 min read

In the bottom drawer to the left of the stove is where the candy bars live. As I write this, there are a couple dozen of them: Kit Kat bars, and Milky Ways and a few of my favorites, Almond Joys. That they are the small “fun size” does not detract from their allure.

It’s my leftover Halloween candy, the result of yet another miscalculation. Last year, my first October in this home, I laid in a lot of treats because I wasn’t sure what to expect. That night, exactly one goblin rang my doorbell. I don’t remember what I did with all the leftover candy – probably ate it.

In the year since then, I’ve seen more children in the neighborhood, so I bought the big bag (for the ridiculous price of $22!) Again, I had few takers.

I’m left with 15 Beth-pounds worth of chocolate and coconut. I dare not open that drawer.

There was a time when we teenage girls avoided chocolate not because it was fattening – because many of us could eat anything and stay skinny – but because it caused our faces to break out. That connection to acne has been debunked by dermatologists (although I could swear my face would get some spots after the chocolate-happy Halloween, Christmas and Easter).

Give the candy away, you say? I suppose I could, although I would be adding to the glut. In the days after Halloween, social media was awash in comments about how few trick-or-treaters were out. Maybe it was the cold weather, but a lot of us are stuck with candy.

Stuck is treacherous. Is there anything more satisfying that tearing into the crinkly foil wrapper of an Almond Joy bar and washing it down with hot coffee? That’s a slippery slope for me. If one is good, wouldn’t 10 of them be even more joyful?

Since I’m not ridding my house of the stuff, I am employing a different kind of avoidance, based on something I learned from an older co-worker many years ago.

I was interning at a radio station in Pittsburgh, and would ride the streetcar with a man named Bob. As the streetcar swayed along the track, he would talk about his career and his family. One day, he spoke of how he used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, and how he kicked the habit. The trick for him, he said, was keeping a pack where he could see it.

“It stayed on my bedroom dresser,” he said. ” I could see it and I knew it was there, and I knew I could go get a cigarette if I really wanted one, but I didn’t have to do that. I could always get one tomorrow, but not today.”

The approach is similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan of “One Day at a Time” you’ll see on bumper stickers. The cigarette thing goes counter to the wisdom of “outta sight, outta mind” – or in the case of my candy bars, “outta the house, outta the mouth.” But anyone who’s walked hungry though a grocery store will tell you the dangers of that way of thinking. There’s always more to buy.

I know the candy is in that drawer because those obnoxious little bars call out to me. The cacophony is joined by the voice in my head that tells me to go ahead and get one. Just one won’t hurt. That slope is slippy, as we say. I close the door with my foot, telling myself I can always take one next time, or tomorrow.

But geez, that Almond Joy has a big mouth.