Sweet Teeth

I walk into a bank. There are lollipops and fruity lifesavers sitting in bowls everywhere. I look over my right shoulder, then my left. No one is looking at me. Perfect. I slip five lollies and several lifesavers into my purse. I can't help myself.

I leave a restaurant and spy at the door, a container full of those soft red and white round mints that melt in your mouth. I take a handful and immediately stuff them in my pocket. The hostess looks away, engaged with customers. I grab another handful. I am a marauding mint miser.

So much for skipping dessert!

I enter the library meeting room. Our monthly writing workshop is about to begin. I spy a large bowl in the middle of the long table around which members sit. It is filled with leftover Halloween candy brought by a fellow scribe.

My cohorts are busy flipping pages, taking a last glance at their essays before reading commences. Distraction for them; opportunity for me. I grab two - or maybe it was three - Butterfingers and place them in my lap.

The bowl is passed around to members before readings and comments begin. Opportunity strikes again! I take a miniature Mounds bar and a small package of M&Ms. The Mounds bar is calling out my name, begging to be eaten. I oblige.

By now I feel like one of Pavlov's experiments. I am a victim of classic conditioning. I have a learned, automatic, and involuntary response elicited by a previous stimulus. The stimulus is sugar in any shape or appearance.

Yes, I have sweet teeth. Not the traditional sweet tooth. Alas, I have several sweet tooths.

The craving for sugar is a habit - a very bad habit - I wish I could break. Sugar can be a harbinger of cavities, weight gain, increased blood pressure, and inflammation, among other bodily hazards.

I have tried in vain to reduce my seemingly insatiable desire for sugar, but the substance is everywhere. It is hidden in foods and beverages without regard for bodily harm, or for the vulnerability of people like me.

But, really, this addiction is not my fault. No, it's not my fault. I blame my late grandfather for these sweet teeth. When I was a child, he would always sneak me a sugar cube.

In Russia, from where he emigrated, he told me people always used sugar cubes in their glass of tea. Because his family was of modest means, there was not an abundance of cubes in his home. But when there were some to be had, it was considered a treat to share one or two with children in the household. It was a gesture of love perhaps.

Apparently grandpa felt I needed to enjoy this treat, so he slipped me sugar cubes behind my mother's back. The sugar bowl in his Bronx, New York City apartment was well-stocked with the little white delights.

When grandpa visited us, he always had several cubes for me wrapped in a clean handkerchief in his pocket.

Oh, there was nothing like the delight of a sugar cube melting in a child's mouth. It was even fun to chew one, much to grandpa's disapproval. The cube, he intoned, was meant to be enjoyed leisurely by melting, not by chomping and swallowing in haste.

Thus began Pavlov's proven classic conditioning. Early on, I learned how an automatic, and involuntary response can be elicited by a previous stimulus ... starting with a sugar cube.

However, unlike Pavlov's dogs, I do have a brain that can reason - which is unique to humans. I do not have to be bound to stimuli. I can quit this bad habit. After all, I did quite smoking after several tries. In fact, I've been nicotine free now for almost half a century, right?

I will start sugar withdrawal tomorrow, certainly not today with an array of treats before me. Or for that matter any day this month. What with all the holidays, I don't stand a chance during thirty some days of stimuli.

Yes, I think I feel a New Year's resolution smoldering. In the meantime, please pass that plate of sugar plum goodies.