Sweet Vice

I don't smoke. Not even marijauna. I don't take prescription medication. Not even the anti-hypertensive which was prescribed. I like ibuprofen when I'm sore or crampy, and acetaminophen or aspirin when my head hurts. I like orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea with lots of sugar. Iced tea which is the same thing only with ice. I like Diet Pepsi, it tastes like it has lots of sugar. Hot chocolate in the fall and winter, I like to make it myself with real milk and cocoa powder and lots of sugar on the stove top. Coffee, lots of sugar, only when I feel like I can't hold my eyes open, which happens less often now than it used to. Now that I don't live with a drunk. I never really liked alcohol much. I might find one or two drinks in a year, usually some girly drink with lots of sugar.

I haven't had anything alcoholic in over a year. I haven't had a cream horn in over a year. Cream horns, or whatever they are called, are a confection with no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever. They consist of white flour, vegetable shortening and lots of sugar. They have no flavor. They are just crisp-flaky, creamy-sweet. More an experience in texture than taste. I really like cream horns. When I was pregnant and my husband sent me to the store for beer, I would buy them and tell myself that I would have only one. They usually come in packages of six, on a styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic wrap in the deli near the doughnuts. I would hide them under the seat of the car. Then I would eat one....at a time... until all the evidence was consumed, and I would throw away the tray and the plastic wrap. My husband would drink all the beer and then tell me I was getting fat.

I drive to work with my windows down because the air does not work in the car. Old trailers are scattered along the two lane highway, in-between farm homes. At one point along the road, a stench wafts in. The stench of a drunk marinating in his own, stale, alcoholic urine. My husband drank himself to death at the age of 44. Sometimes he would stink like that. I want to throw-up for the next three miles.

When I get to work, my co-worker has brought in doughnuts. I choose one with lots of sugar.