"When it Comes to Breakfast, I Don’t Tread Lightly..." by Loukia Borrell

When it Comes to Breakfast, I Don’t Tread Lightly. I am Naked, Alone, and Locked in my Bathroom Eating Forkfuls of Frosting.

For the past year, maybe two, probably longer, the first thing I eat every day is dessert. I know better. I should be eating a bowl of plain oatmeal with sliced banana or Special K in almond milk, but I don’t want to hear about that. I have been in therapy since my first marriage (I made an appointment with a therapist just after we returned from our sexless honeymoon in Bermuda) and if I ever admit my addiction to my current counselor, (I’ve had a few) she might tell me I am depressed and exhibiting passive-aggressive behavior. She will say, “Well, you love your family, but you’re weary of them. You feel like you must even the score, up the ante, because they have made you spend years doing things you hate. Laundry, meals, driving them to wherever, spending a lot of cash on whatever, depriving you of sleep, and forcing you to spend hours imagining a life of debauchery and depravity in Mallorca with a sexy Spaniard who has great hands and will make sure you never see the inside of a Walmart ever, ever again.” She may also throw in my stalled career (I was supposed to be a journalist) and that I am super-annoyed my husband must pay alimony until he’s dead. Or until his ex is. I should also mention I don’t love all my neighbors, hold massive grudges against people who deserve them, and nurture other annoyances that are simultaneously entertaining and simply sad.

I think my sugar addiction is just my desire to burn, not calories, but just burn. Do what I want. Have a secret. Be bad in the bathroom while I am getting dressed. I can’t bring myself to cheat on my husband (I’ve had a few offers), smoke weed, drink and be disorderly, or take huge vacations with girlfriends, so it is just desserts. This is how I begin my days.

I tell myself not to do it, but then I do, and it is quick, like a vampire bite I can’t take back. It usually happens before 8 a.m., when I am getting ready for the day. I lock myself in the bathroom with a bowl of Chips Ahoy cookies to dunk in dark roast coffee. Or have a slice of layer cake. I do it before or after a shower, leaning over the tile counter, often naked or half-dressed, which makes it worse because there is a mirror nearby and my belly seems to be rising.

The most important part of having morning dessert is figuring out how to hide the fact that I am having morning dessert. It is easier to eat the sweet stuff everyone knows we have in the kitchen. These items are store-bought and include the aforementioned Chips Ahoy cookies, Breyers ice cream, Carvel cakes and sometimes baklava, which I should be making because I am Greek, but then would have to hide because it might be better than the store’s.

Once I cross the line to upper-class desserts, the Maseratis of Mousse, the hoarding intensifies. This list includes anything I order online, anything made by a company with an ampersand, such as Harry & David, or with a person’s name, Mrs. Fields. I also am possessive of my neighbor Violet’s baking. As payback for the figs I give her during the summer, Violet brings me chocolate chip Bundt cake (her aunt’s recipe), that I love a little more than the Ghirardelli chocolate brownies from Harris Teeter I never pass up when I am over there buying healthy fish to make for dinner. Those desserts are hidden. I don’t want to share them and recently added The Biltmore Vanilla Bean Cheesecake to my do not disturb list. I hid it in the basement freezer, behind the Pepperidge Farm cake, which now has a lower status because the Biltmore cake’s package mentions the Vanderbilt family and Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans. I don’t know where vanilla beans grow, but because the Biltmore cake has the ones from Madagascar, those vanilla beans seem to be more important than the ones growing elsewhere, wherever that is.    

Eventually, I am going to get caught. My husband has mentioned (more than once) a German stollen that has been sitting in our basement freezer for years. I checked the wrapper for an expiration date but couldn’t find it. I think it froze off. Or maybe the cake was sent to me before they started using expiration dates. The stollen has rum in it and is some recipe from Frau Helga. I don’t know Helga, but I appreciate her nonetheless. I really think I should hide the stollen. Maybe I should cut it in half like you would a dead body, but it is so frozen, I don’t think I will have enough time to thaw, cut and hide it before someone comes home.

Loukia Borrell is a proud, first-generation American. She was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Greek-Cypriot immigrants and was raised in Virginia. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a journalism concentration, from Elon University. She is a former print reporter. Her essays and poetry have been published in American, English and Irish literary journals. To learn more, please visit her website at loukialoukaborrell.com.