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 had a buy one get one free deal, which I’d partake, even though they kept raising the price, while providing an inconsistent level of quality food (often undercooked or under seasoned/sauced). They had me at get one free. But this year, they changed the deal to buy one get one half off, which sorta felt like robbing me and then tossing a nickel back to me as a thanks. In my mind they’re pricing and value was good at get one free, but at the price point of a normal meal? Where I could get other delicious things for that amount, and better chances of it being cooked the way it’s supposed to be? I’m out.

Thanks for bearing with me (obviously it’s been a bitter breakup), the point is treating yourself is good. The more things you can add to your life to look forward to, the better. If you only have one thing, um, there’s a greater chance that it’ll get disrupted and eventually not work out, especially these days. The mints? Currently a dollar at the dollar store, so…