I just pulled an Oprah.
So, I was in the grocery store last Monday, tooling up and down the aisles to see if anything would catch my eye, or trigger my memory in case I was forgetting something. After all, I always manage to forget something.
I was in the cracker/cookie aisle when it dawned on me that I needed Saltines (actually, I buy Jewel-brand "Salted Tops"...yes, yes, yuck it up, but Salted Tops are cheaper and just as good as Saltines. We're in a recession, people...). More importantly, this item is personally deemed a necessity because I'm in the midst of my annual soup craze and I, of course, have to have crackers with my soup. So I picked up the Tops and again meandered. For no reason though I stopped and thought, hey, I remember once-upon-a-time liking these caramel-flavored rice cakes that my friend John gets all the time, maybe I should pick some up?
Perfect. Since I eat within a pretty air-tight meal regimen that leaves little room for indulgence and/or gluttony, I could spice life up a little with these ridiculous rice cakes. *If you didn't know, now you do: I am a bottomless pit when it comes to eating food. I eat when I'm not hungry, I eat when I'm full, I eat when I'm bored, I eat before bed--I basically eat 'round the clock.
Guilty. Anyway.
So, OK, pick up some rice cakes already. Yes. They're reasonably harmless. But where are they? I thought for sure they'd be in the cracker aisle because they resemble a cracker, right? Ok...um, weird, nowhere to be found... okay moving on, maybe the chip aisle? I don't really see them as chips but I guess they could be associated as such? Tortilla, potato, Doritos, pretzels, Chex, nope, nope, nope, and nope.
WTF.
Ah, rice cakes! Here you are. Caramel-flavored? Suh-weet. Hmm, what does the packaging say...crisp, light, and fat-free check, check, and check! I'm good with all three of those things. Ok, let's give the Nutri-sh label a quick scan...ok, ok 60 calories in 8 cakes, 13 servings per bag. Fine, cool, whatev. Done.
So I bought two, normal-sized bags: one for at home, one for at work. Perfect.
Tuesday I brought a bag to work. It was gone by Wednesday. For some reason 8 cakes turned into 16 cakes, and 16 cakes turned into 32 cakes. Woah, did that actually just happen? Slow down, Sumner, godddd.
Now that my supply ran empty at work, Thursday I brought the second bag. I mean, I need my cakes.
Low and behold, I just rounded off the second bag...and it's Friday. This week I've managed to eat half a bag of caramel-flavored rice cakes per day. Half.a.bag.a.day, people. I can't really do math therefore I won't even try to calculate the calories it amounts to, but all in all it's not good.
If it can happen to Oprah, it can happen to me.
And it did.
Kelly Clarkson said it best: never again.
