Indulgences

I'm the kind of person who has lots of routines and rules that I follow every day. When I wake up in the morning, I have to brush my teeth first thing. I never, ever eat a meal at home when I'm not sitting at my kitchen table. I can't stand to leave lots of dirty dishes in the sink.

Dreamy, as I'm sure long-time blog readers can imagine, is more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, impulsive guy. If he feels like it, he'll go right ahead and eat dessert before dinner. He doesn't think twice about skipping teeth-brushing when he's sleepy. He doesn't even own a kitchen table, and because he doesn't have a kitchen sink either, dirty dishes pile up on his bathroom floor. And cleaning his apartment is... not a priority.

So it was probably under his influence that I exclaimed on Sunday night, after concocting a pair of delicious post-dinner Old-Fashioneds, "Let's take them to bed with us and drink them there! We can watch Glee at the same time. It will be the best Sunday night EVER." Because I so rarely indulge myself like this, the idea seemed incredibly fun and exciting.

We headed to bed, orange-garnished Old-Fashioneds in hand, and set up Dreamy's iPad to watch Glee. A few minutes in, shortly after the opening credits, Dreamy got up to go to the bathroom, and on the way back snagged the remaining candy from my Easter basket and brought it along to bed. He started peeling chocolate eggs and shoving jelly beans into his mouth, leaving tiny pieces of pastel-colored foil scattered around him.

I'm usually a pretty generous person, and would be happy to share just about anything with Dreamy. This includes my precious Easter candy, even though it only comes once a year and is amazingly delicious. But I could see that if I let Dreamy keep at it there would soon be no Easter candy left for me, plus the foil all over the place did not appeal to my sense of order. So I cut him off, grabbing the bags and placing them carefully on the bedside table.

A few minutes passed in silence. Then: "Hey, what happened to that chocolate bunny your grandmother sent?" We opened up the bunny and started gnawing on its ears. After a few bites, I thought to ask if Dreamy might prefer dark chocolate to the milk we were presently consuming at unprecedented speeds. My students are very generous with their chocolate gifts, so there is never a lack of chocolate in the house. I got out a box of truffles that I received for Teacher Appreciation Week last week.

In the morning, I opened my eyes to take in my bedside table: empty Old-Fashioned glasses with the orange rinds hardening at the bottom. A decapitated chocolate bunny lying horizontally with a half-open box of truffles perched precariously on top of it. Tiny pieces of foil scattered across the bedside table as well as the bed. And Dreamy? He had a big dollop of chocolate on his neck where one of the truffles had leaked on him, midway toward his mouth.

I'm not going to make a habit of it, but I have to say, it kinda was the best Sunday night ever.