Treating Yourself at Night

My nightstand is usually a place of nightmares for the clutter-phobic; books, pens, magazines, loose change, bobbles and trinkets, and straight up garbage, oh yes, it’s a mess. Every once in a while, it’ll get organized. And, by organized, I mean everything is decluttered on top and everything else, often, thrown straight into my nightstand drawers, minus the garbage. While “cleaning,” I noticed I had an unopened package of Andes thin mints in my drawer. Sometimes, I buy and store gifty items there. Feeling like I needed a reward for all of my work, I opened the package and took a piece. It was… a very tasty, delightful, morsel of chocolate and mint, smooth yet firm. As one bite would be too much, I took pleasure in its resounding snap as I broke it into two pieces. Where there was one, now I had created many! After eating them and seeing the rest of the package, I was faced with an existential dilemma, should I eat the rest of them? Sorely tempted, I refrained as an idea popped into my head: why not make this an end-of-the-night treat? No matter how the day goes, I have my secret stash of candy. I can toast my day and have a single piece, something to look forward to without being over-indulgent. Isn’t that why they used to put mints on pillows in hotels back in the day? Maybe there were other reasons, but whatevs, point being: this is a nice way to take set myself up to have something to look forward to all day.

Some people do coffee in the morning, or a specific meal once a week. Actually, I just broke off my engagement with Buffalo Wild Wings. Tuesdays they…