Sugar

Well I couldn't sleep. So I started typing, and here's what came out...? :



I dunno about you, but Jr High/Middle school was not a great time in my life. I can't remember what the inside of my classrooms looked like, but I can tell you who the cutest girls were, what time lunch was (so that I knew when I could stop pretending I was running an errand for the teacher), and what were the best online game sites. Anyone remember Slime Sports?

I lived in Colorado from when I was 12-16. Those are tough years to switch schools (and countries), and I didn't handle it too well. I was frustrated with no direction, alone except for my best friend...a homeschooled Baptist who I couldn't relate to except for our love of waterballoon fights, basketball, and our common lack of friends. I didn't even try to make friends for the first three years since I was told we'd be moving back to Canada in a couple years. BooHoo, right?

Anyways, fun fact about Josh. I'm a sugar addict to the extreme. For as long as I can remember, I've been finding ways to get as much sugar in my system as possible. When I was four, I would wait until everyone was asleep and then sneak downstairs, push a chair up to the counter, climb up and open the snack cupboard. Without fail, there'd be a hidden fruit-roll-up in the back corner. I would hide one there so that my mom would buy more before they were actually all gone. I couldn't afford to not have a sugar rush late at night.

When I was five I did that stupid kid thing of snorthing pixie sticks. I wasn't the brightest kid, but I learned after the first time and never did that again.

In colorado, however, this addiction was taken to the extreme. I became a candy salesmen in grade seven. I bought one Jolly Rancher sucker (watermelon) for $0.15 and sold it at school for $0.25. Eventually, I was supplying candy of all types to as many as 30 kids on a daily basis. All profits were lost, however, as I kept eating as much of the candy as I could afford.

I stole the brown sugar lumps from the kitchen on a regular basis. My mom would find wrappers in all my pockets when she did laundry. The dentist would shed a tear every 6 months. I can't remember not having a cavity. My face was brutally destroyed by acne, and I was even skinnier than I am now: I literally ate nothing except for candy and sugar..and healthy, balanced dinner that my mom always cooked.

I went to church every sunday and bought a 40oz slurpee to make it through the 1 hour sermon. It was always finished before the pastor stopped talking. I would wake up at 4 am to bike to the 24hour 7-11 and buy an "Xtreme Gulp" Slurpee---you know those massive insulated mugs that they only charge 80 cents for refills on? That was breakfast each day before and during school. That's almost a 2 liter milk carton full of liquid sugar every day just to wake me up. I called 7-11 my second home. I was on a first name basis with the girl who worked there. This was the low point of my life.

I figured out that I could go into the school office about three times a month and tell them the pop machine ate my money. they would then give me two bucks, and I could go buy a bag of candy, sell it next class, and buy two Vanilla Cokes. Morals? Nah.

Granted, there were worse things I could have been addicted to at that age. In Junior High, I was friends with all the stoners and partiers who didn't give a crap about school. I don't know why I didn't ever take up drugs...but I didn't.

The last year of Colorado was better though. I started making friends, enjoying life--but still constantly on a sugar high. Then I moved back, and was miserable again. I didn't realize how out of control I was until a year later. I checked a pay stub from Safeway and realized that just working part time, I'd made $4500. The only thing I had actually bought was a guitar and amp: $500. Where did that $4000 go? Candy. chips. Pop.

I was so disgusted with myself. I was also surprised I was still a functional human after all that junk. I painfully began to stop spending money on sugar. It was sooo hard. I started drinking a lot of juice instead of pop, and crackers instead of cookies. Slowly, I was able to just eat lots of fruit and pasta.

I know it sound really retarded and pathetic that I'm not talking about crack and ecstacy, but sugar was so accessible and acceptable that it had quite the grip on my life. It's a lot easier to talk yourself out of going to some sketchy street corner to buy drugs off a dealer who might stab you if he hasn't had his fix that day, than it is to convince yourself not to spend just four bucks on sour patch kids, chewy gobstoppers, and a slurpee before french class.

Anyways, to this day, I haven't entirely kicked the addiction. My teeth have not completely recovered  (they are always sensitive), and my bank account still takes unnecessary blows to buy snacks. There's no moral to this story. No happy ending where everything is all better.

I guess it's on my mind because the most dangerous holiday of the year for me is quickly approaching:

Halloween.

DUN DUN DUN