I *almost* ate the last cupcake

I almost ate the last cupcake.

But I didn't.

It wasn't a matter of will power or anything like that. In fact, this post was supposed to be "I ate the last cupcake."

But I didn't.

It happened like this:

I still had a bunch of leftover cupcakes from Tuesday (St. Valentine's Day). Nobody was eating them. Well, not entirely true: Some were eaten on Tuesday, my 4yo niece had had one each day since, the little guy I look after had one yesterday and I indulged yesterday (and regretted it), but that still left many cupcakes. Hubby and my kids aren't eating them.

So I ate one after lunch.

Or rather, 3/4 of one.

I'd eaten half of it, really paying attention to the taste and texture, and was kind of thinking, "Why am I eating this? It doesn't even taste that good." See, it wasn't homemade and made of fine ingredients. It was No Name cake mix and some sort of prepackaged frosting. Full of man-made chemicals and crud. As I threw the last 1/4 of it away, I said to my daughter, "It doesn't taste like real food." Pause. "That's cuz it's not real food." (And even just the 3/4 I did eat left me with my tell-tale headache. I don't know if it's the cupcake or the frosting. Or an ingredient common to both. Or just my body's way of saying, "Stop eating this cr*p!")

I had no temptation for the rest of the afternoon.

My 7yo niece and 11yo nephew arrived after school. I let them each have a cupcake. (And part of me inside is now going, "Why am I feeding them that junk?") That left one. Which sat there. And sat there. And sat there.

I ate supper. With the cupcake sitting there still on the table. I thought, "I guess I'll eat it. I'd hate for it to go to waste."

In half a second, through my mind went the idea of blogging about how I ate the last cupcake and why-oh-why-did-I-eat-it-when-it-didn't-taste-that-good-and-how-I-catch-myself-doing-this-eating-things-up-because-I-don't-want-them-to-go-to-waste-but-won't-it-just-be-going-to-waste-in-my-body?

Going to waste in my body. 

And for something that I didn't even really enjoy.

I looked at that thing sitting there. The poor thing: its fate was doomed. No way I was going to eat it now.

I cleaned up my supper dishes and confirmed that nobody was going to eat it. Then I picked it up. It is now in the garbage--because everybody else here has the sense to not eat it. And now I do, too.

And that's how this post, that was going to be "I ate the last cupcake", became "I *almost* ate the last cupcake."