Jawsing Around the Aisle of Bakery

Shark and cake, Getty Images

Story Number 6: Grapes of Irony Number 2

(Written 8/4/22) 

Invariably this is how it happens.  I enter the bakery section of any store and my anxiety starts.  I know I should not buy dessert, being overweight.  I don’t need it.  And I am fond of saying “want and need are two different things;” my way of trying to remind myself to keep things in check.  But the thought of dessert, especially cake, my Achilles heel, is such a strong draw.  I always wonder if anyone who may be observing me in the bakery section sees it?  Sees me, pushing my cart around each tiny dessert display island, much like a great white shark, circling a rocky outcropping packed with blubbery, delicious seals.  And if anyone was watching me, they would see me slowly circling around each table stacked with wicked sugary wonders, my eyes sparkling with keen interest.  Very slowly, around, and around I go, sure not to miss a single display; figure-eighting back and forth—double checking because I am nothing if not thorough.  This is not a quick coast through the bakery.  This is an expedition.  And like any great explorer I will stop and pick up various desserts for examination and deep consideration.  Golden-crusted pie, with those diamond-like sugar crystals that crunch as you bite into them just before you hit the flaky yet slightly doughy crust on the way to the motherlode of succulent fruit incased in that luscious, thick-yet-silky pie filling.  Cute, little cupcakes with perky piles of frosting just asking to be unwrapped and shoved into your mouth whole, not unlike a months-long awaited homecoming of your lover.  Cookies; some crisp, some soft, some with bits of crunchy nuts or chocolate goodness, that last in your mouth just moments longer than the cookie that crumbles around them.  Turnovers that collapse, not unlike your resolve, as you bite into them, spewing flaky crust with wild abandon all over your shirt.  Loaf cakes that you know are so moist they will roll around your tongue before your gnashing teeth and saliva transform them into that not solid but not liquid soft bits of sweet comfort.  Around and around I go, circling and circling.  And I do call this jawsing, so much like Jaws the great white shark, cruising; if he ate cake.

Food addiction is a bitch.  Any addiction is a bitch, however, drugs, alcohol, gambling, those you can live without.  Food, you cannot.  Food addiction is particularly cruel because it says “You need me.  You will die without me.  But you don’t need that much of me.  Too much of me will kill you.”  Forever taunting with this sadistic push and pull, yes, no, you must eat me, but not that much.  And food, why are you so fucking delicious!?

I was set up for food addiction.  This is a conversation my mom had with my grandmother, who babysat me as a toddler when my mom worked the late shift. 

Mom:  “What did you have for dinner?”

Grandma:  “Pork roast, potatoes, apple sauce, and green beans.”

Mom:  “That sounds really good.  How much did Bunny eat?”

Grandma:  “Oh nothing.  She didn’t like it.  But she had a piece of chocolate cake with your dad later while they watched wrestling together.”

Doomed, I tell you.  I was doomed.

The biggest catalyst in my food addiction was when I was 7 years old, and I remember it vividly.  Coming home from school, on many an occasion, to find my mom’s bedroom door not just closed, but locked.  And lest any fragment of her children’s existence seep into her room uninvited, her headphones with the stereo playing and drawn shades guaranteed that none of our essence would disturb her.   I remember facing her looming, locked door and then going to our pantry and eating powdered sugar directly out of the box.  I was after-school hungry and who could think that powdered sugar would satiate true hunger, but that sugar acted like a powerful salve on the paths in my brain that keenly felt the emotional neglect.  And so it began, my intimacy with food addiction, especially sugar.

So started years of food addiction idiosyncrasies:  Having anxiety when filling my plate, because I need just a little bit more!!  Watching the portion on my plate getting smaller as I fill my gaping maw, and again with the anxiety.  Eating when I was bored.  Eating when I was lonely.  Eating when I felt unloved.  Eating when I was stressed.  Jawsing around the bakery in search of that next, sweet high.

A few years ago, I was with a group of people and the topic of dessert came up.  One of the people stated, “I stop eating when I am full.”  Such a simple declarative statement.  Yet me, in my early 50s no less, thought, “Huh?  That’s a thing?”  What does fullness have to do with anything?  It’s not about fullness but satiation that is never quite satiated, that rush as the sweet hits your palate, and the soft texture swirls in your mouth, that is what I am after.  And the temporary burst of pleasure when the sugar hits my brain.

To my credit, about 10 years ago, I did attend Overeater’s Anonymous for a bit and I bought a smaller plate specifically for portion control.  I have learned the art of slowly chewing each bite and swallowing said bite before I shove another into my mouth.  As I have aged, I have been able to be controlled more by reason and make better choices, such as skipping bread in the meal because I know I will have dessert later.  Or choosing water over soda.  Small things that in the long-run make a huge difference.  I am forever grateful for the “single-sized” cake portions one can now get in the bakery section and I actually have so much self-control now that those can last as me three-dessert portions over three-days.  But in trawling for those delightful dessert portions, I still do jaws around my favorite place, with the gleam in my eyes, the Aisle of Bakery.