My husband told me a story once about his brother that always makes me laugh when I remember it.

Houses that we grew up in were quite small…..small living rooms, small kitchens and small bedrooms, that’s it.  

No family rooms.  

The living room and the family room were the same room.  

In our adult life, we’ve honestly had bedrooms bigger than the living rooms most of us grew up with.

So when his neighborhood high school, teen-aged buddies all piled in to watch the one and only TV in the house, the living room bulged.  

He remembers his brother’s TV watchin’ ritualistic behavior.

First he’d push the ottoman or foot-stool as we called it, kinda into the middle of the room in front of the TV.

That made the rest of the guys in the room all sitting behind him.

Then somehow without being seen, he got to the kitchen and back with potato sticks and hid them under the cushion of the ottoman.

As he sat on the ottoman, he’d slyly reach under the cushion and place a few potato stix into his mouth and chewed them but was careful not to crunch.

He was finally busted when one of the boys noticed his back and forth arm movements and demanded to see what was going into his mouth.

At that point his brother left the room, clutching the bag of stix, not willing to share.

Each time I’ve ever joined Weight Watchers and each time meaning more than once, one of the first things I’d do is clear the cupboards of our favorite TV watching junk food.

The very first time I started collecting it all, my sweet man panicked wanting to know where was it all going?

I told him either to the trash or he could handle it, just get it out of the kitchen and out of my sight.

He gathered the many bags, tins and boxes and left the kitchen with his arms loaded.

We didn’t speak of where it all went.  I didn’t want to know.

But each night sometime during our TV watching, he’d disappear for a few moments.

I’d hear the door to the garage open and a few moments later, I’d hear his car trunk slam shut.  

He’d return to the sofa and back to the movie.  

I never heard him crunch but  he had that same arm to mouth movement that he described his brother had from the potato stix story. 

In March when Covid began and we became hermits isolated to our homes, I realized the potential for doing lots of eating and so I let my sweet man know that I wouldn’t be purchasing any good stuff to overdose on but I wasn’t gonna force him to go along with me. 

The deal was if he wanted junk, he’d have to take it off the grocery shelf himself. 

I wasn’t gonna touch it AND it couldn’t be things that I LOVE.

That meant anything chocolate, anything cold in the freezer or anything salty and crunchy except popcorn and pretzels.

Don’t get me wrong, I like popcorn and pretzels but I can pass them up.

So, we have boxes of microwave popcorn and bags of pretzels lined up in his junk-food area of the cupboard.

A few weeks ago we received a beautiful tin of cookies delivered by our postman from southern California friends.

A tin FULL of cookies!  

BEAUTIFUL cookies!! 

CHOCOLATE covered cookies!!!

We each took one.  

They were melt-in-our-mouths delicious.

At that moment, I could very easily have eaten at least six more.

At LEAST six more!

I handed the tin to my sweet man.

“Get them outta here, throw them away.” 

He had the look of horror on his face but said nothing.

He took the tin and headed for the garage.

NO WAY could he put them in his trunk, it was triple digit weather and they had chocolate on them.

I was fairly comfortable they went out into the trash.

A few days ago I needed something from the garage refrigerator.

I’d forgotten about the tin of cookies UNTIL…………I opened the fridge door and, there they were!

THERE THEY WERE!

He hadn’t tossed them AND…..I was hungry!

I pulled the tin out and lifted the lid,  still cookies but it looked like quite a few were missing.

At least HALF of them were gone.

I strategically removed two from spots that looked like they wouldn’t be missed.

I took them into the kitchen, wrapped them in a napkin and placed them carefully betwen my chair cushion and the arm rest.

Later that evening when it was TV watching time, I waited for my sweet man to head for the kitchen.

He flicked on the kitchen light.  I heard him open the cupboard door, grab the bag of pretzels and his favorite snack bowl, pour pretzels in the bowl, close the bag, put it back in the cupboard, shut the cupboard door and turn off the kitchen light.

Exactly enough time for me to secret crunch two cookies.