Yesterday morning I wanted a Pop Tart so bad! I’d been banging away at a pile of paperwork all morning and when my ten o’clock break finally rolled around it was all I could do to beat back the urge (or the desire) to give in and go plug the snack machine for a packet of my all-time favorite Pop Tarts, brown sugar and cinnamon. But I didn’t. It hurt, but I didn’t.

I didn’t because I know I really don’t need 2,700 calories of fat and sugar blasting its way through my bloodstream to the vital organs of my body just so I can sit, inert, at my desk for eight hours. I don’t need it, and it doesn’t make sense. The cold, calculating part of my brain knows that, but the warm, fuzzy part of my heart loves brown sugar and cinnamon Pop Tarts! It does!

There might have been a time that my younger body could have dealt with that kind of pollution … okay, I know, it didn’t; it never could. Drek is drek and the only reason it seems like you can tolerate it when you’re young is because, as everyone knows, young people are indestructible, especially teenaged boys. Might as well just admit it.

Whether or not I could ever tolerate it, the old fart’s body I’m growing into one day won’t, and I probably won’t know it until I’m down on one knee, clutching my chest. See, I told you I always think in worst-case scenarios. So no Pop Tart today. Trying to be good. Going to start packing carrot sticks and dried cranberries for snacks. And granola. And chalk. Yum.