The Penultimate Teaspoon

Every single day 200 million individual Skittles are made.  The red ones are the most popular, with orange a close second. The Skittles website contains a health chapter that discusses ‘The Benefits of Chewing.’

Well there it went, the penultimate day of the Good Ship Lollipop’s maiden voyage. The port is on the horizon and behind me is an ocean of fructose sweetened beverages full of overweight pirates, fatty livered geese and a large whale like creature that looks a lot like me. Tomorrow we dock and begin to offload the cargo, piles of sugar dumped onto the harbour jetty, pouring out of the ship’s sweaty, heaving bowel never to be seen again. The ship will be light and nimble once more, ready for another adventure and equipped with full and nourishing sails. It may need a week or two in the ship yard but there is a fine team on hand and I cant think of any more sailing metaphors. Ahoy.

When I woke this morning, it really hit home that there would be no more sugar eating after tomorrow. This brought waves of emotion and I began to scour the cupboards to make sure every granule will be eaten and the white plague will no longer effect this house. As a result some Third Reich type cross breeding hybrid experimenting took place and once again I found myself enjoying a bowl of ‘Nutri Rice Grain Bubbles’ with low fat yoghurt. This Iron Man Snap Crackle Pop food with its yoghurt brûlée on top secured me a magnificent 16 teaspoons to start the day and I was up and running like a newly elected leader from a sinking boat crisis. Run rAbbott Run.

I washed down this Trevor Hendy bastardization with a cup of tea with 2 sugars.

I then caught up with some family members and settled into watching the Australian sporting ritual that is the Grand Final. Good chats were had, an occasional outburst at an umpire and then my lady and my stepmother both noticed that I had gotten a bit edgy. We are so well drilled now that the sugar was immediately reached for. In this case a banana, yoghurt honey smoothie was prepared and those 12 teaspoons had me politely complimenting the excellent standard of play once more. The umpires were  ‘just doing their best.’

AFL is a long game though and towards the end, I felt the prince of darkness rising from within. The cynical hat started to attach to my head and Dr Knarkey was taking appointments. Again I must commend the family on their magnificent reading of the play because as I scowled at the television I noticed a plate of water crackers with cheese and fruit chutney land beside me and accompanying it was a warm mug of milo that had 3 teaspoons of sugar added to it.  The extreme fire danger warning returned to safe and harmony was restored. I do wonder if I am like some kind of wild animal at the zoo with ‘the keepers’ watching me like a hawk and making sure I don’t cross ‘that’ line and lash out at a small child or perhaps jump a railing and terrorise the neighbourhood. The beast has only one day of quelling remaining. Although the true ferocious roaring may come on days 1 to 5 of the detox.