It’s February, the shortest month of the year, a month since the onset of our New Year’s resolutions. It’s also host to Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day. As always, there’s something looming over it all, and it’s not snow. All you need to do is walk into any store and you’ll feel it. Even a stroll through the Internet will bring it to light.
I recently started following Maria Shriver on Twitter. The first tweet I received was a link to her Facebook page, where she asked her fans: “We all have one, and we want to know – what’s your guilty pleasure?”
As of nine o’clock this morning, she had received 100 responses, almost a third of which mentioned chocolate. Dark chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, red velvet cupcakes, chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream, Reese’s cups and several combinations involving milk or red wine or television. Two of my personal favorites—macaroni and cheese and Cheetos—also made the list.
Not surprisingly, most of Maria’s Facebook fans are women. I’d love to hear more men’s responses to the question of guilty pleasures—or maybe I wouldn’t. Something tells me chocolate might not be so prominent.
I have a theory about chocolate as a guilty pleasure and it might be totally off base: I doubt women get any more pleasure from chocolate than men; but I do suspect they feel more guilt.
I too would be among the first to cite chocolate as a guilty pleasure, but that’s because it’s one of a long list of foods I love that make me ill. My New Year’s resolution is to stay well in 2011. This is not to say the red and green M&Ms didn’t gradually disappear from the candy dish over the course of January. Hey, something’s gotta give. Still, the lighter the candy dish, the heavier my conscience.
Now those heart-shaped boxes of temptation are everywhere (as are the chocolate Easter eggs). I’d say to the women and men out there, unless you have a medical condition that is triggered by chocolate, go ahead and indulge sans guilt. Have my share!
And while we’re on the subject, I’ll join Maria in asking, what’s your guilty pleasure? C’mon, guys, chime in.
So, what’s my beef with Halloween? I’ll hit the couch and tell you that much of it goes back to childhood. For some reason, I frequently got sick on Halloween night. Not from too much candy; I didn’t even make it out the door for trick-or-treating. Whether I spiked a high fever or spouted a projectile nosebleed right there in my Mary Poppins costume, something tended to strike me.
Word Nymph 
