I have tried so hard not to become the stereotypical pregnant woman, someone dressed in sunflower-patterned jumpsuits who stuffs her face with pickles and vanilla ice cream, someone who embodies the target market for Carl’s Jr. six-dollar burger commercials, but yesterday I found myself talking out loud to a pan of rice krispie treats and you know what they say about slippery slopes. I fully expect to find myself browsing the Kathy Lee section of women’s clothing at Walmart by the end of the week.
My relationship with rice krispie treats goes back at least 20 years to a time when I ate nothing but peanut butter and cold cereal, one or the other for every meal. Rice krispie treats are a logical extension of cold cereal, just a little added butter and marshmallowy goodness, and when you run into the right combination of all ingredients you’ve run into perhaps the most perfect food on planet earth: a transcendental blend of chewiness and crunchiness, a sinful sweetness you can feel in your teeth. In high school I used to make a whole pan of rice krispie treats and then eat the entire thing by myself in less than a half hour. Of course, this was a time in my life when I was able to metabolize steel rods through sheer osmosis, and so a 4,000 calorie pan of sticky breakfast cereal made a handy yet relatively lite afternoon snack.
My sister made this most recent batch of rice krispie treats that sits on my countertop. She says she made them because she feels sorry for me and my torturous nausea, something she has been through numerous times, but I know it’s just because she wants me to get fat fast. Nothing would make my sister happier than to see her little sister bulge at the seams, and she knows that rice krispie treats hold the keys to my stomach.
I’ve tried hiding them in dark cubby holes in the basement, but I keep forgetting that I know where I’m hiding them and I find them as soon as I hide them. I’ve tried rationing them in little packages, but I keep rationalizing that each ration is lonely and needs friends, and so I eat four and five rations at a time. Yesterday I gave up and just stood there in the kitchen in my pajamas at 4 o’clock in the afternoon screaming, “YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.”
And I know that it may seem like I have no dignity left and that if I had any pride I would at least get dressed to have a conversation with my food, but my pajama bottoms are covered in little extreme snowboarders, and can’t I at least take comfort in the fact that I haven’t given in to the sunflowers yet?