Day Nine

Actively avoid temptation or your life may be forfeit. Not even kidding! Bad choice #1: I leave for town without eating lunch, so I'm starving by the time I head back home. Bad choice #2: As I'm driving home from town, I decide to dig around in the dark recesses of the "junk collector" tray in the front of our car. Bad choice #3: I find a caramel/chocolate swirl piece of soft candy (one of my many favorites) and decide to leave it there instead of trashing it immediately. At the earliest, it had to have been there since the previous owner. Melted, cooled, melted again. Bad choice #4: Decide to eat it and not even wait to get home. (Maybe I was afraid my conscience would talk me out of it by then?) Bad choice #5: I struggle with the stuck-on wrapper, taking my eyes off the road. (If my parents are reading this, this was the ONLY time I've ever done stupid things while driving.) (Of course, now I've compounded the evil of eating candy with the sin of lying!) CONSEQUENCE: I look up, popping the illegal candy in my mouth, only to find myself halfway in the left lane (two lane highway) and a semi just coming over the top of the hill.
     Obviously, I survived. I swerved back into my own lane and enjoyed chewing the candy for the next 500 feet of roadway. But I had to ask myself, "Really? Risking your life for a stale, smaller-than-a-golf-ball, lasted 15 seconds, piece of sugar that isn't even good for you and has been crammed in a car console for who knows how long? Is that intelligent?" Clearly not.
     A wise person would have - Wise choice #1: Eaten lunch. Full stomachs provide greater mental fortitude. Wise choice #2: Kept my hand out of the guts of the junk tray. Seriously, what great treasures was I expecting to find? Don't go places that are gross! Wise choice #3: Tossed the temptation. Familarity breeds affection. After ten minutes, I had forgotten where it came from and how long it had been there. It looked fresh out of the package to my sugar-deprived eyes! Wise choice #4: Exercised self-control and waited til the proper time for candy-eating. In November. I waited 26 years for my husband! Couldn't wait 26 minutes for my candy. "Idiot!" (Napoleon Dynamite. Hated it the first time, but it's growing on me. Again, some quotable lines!) Wise choice #5: Kept my eyes on the road. The goal was to get home safely. One little chocolate-caramel swirl made me forget my purpose. RESULT: I would arrived safely home, with less stress and guilt, eaten my supper, and maintained my integrity. Funny how the downward spiral on something so trivial so closely mirrors the descent on things less trivial.
     PS - Cardio was a little bit easier this week, and the scale said two pounds less. (Pretty sure that relates more to time of day and amount of clothes on than to actual body composition, but I'll take what I can get!) Maybe I'll survive this after all. (But stay away from candy in the car!)
~Stick to it!