Sickly sweet

    And it begins.

    Chocolate, ginger bread, marshmallows and Hanukkah cookies–there’s a reason most people put on some extra bulge in the holidays. David and I are attempting to eat, for an entire day, only holiday foods.

    My stomach started screaming before we even opened the candy. It’s as if it was trying to tell me something: “Don’t eat a holiday’s worth of cookies and chocolate in one day, Stover!” I told it to shut up or I would drown it in eggnog…and I did just that.

    12:25 p.m.

    Stover: Surprisingly, our breakfast, consisting of sickly sweet marshmallow cereal in a bowl of eggnog, was not too bad. I was so hungry I devoured it in a minute. Mistake number one.

    Soon my teeth felt like sand and my brain felt like it was trying to escape from my skull. Following the eggnog soup, it was probably an ill-advised idea to eat six cookies, but I’ve never been one for good decisions. I don’t think anyone has ever eaten this much sugar in a five-minute period. Only 10 hours left.

    

    David: You know what the only thing better than Lucky Charms is? Lucky Charms with eggnog! I love eggnog! It’s so thick and sweet–I just can’t drink enough of it.

    When Stover and I ate the eggnog and the Lucky Charms for breakfast, I thought my heart might explode from happiness. It tasted like all of the holiday season’s flavors blew up in my mouth. I thought it couldn’t have been any better, but then we added the marshmallows and Cool Whip to it! The Cool Whip was like sweet, frosty snow on my tongue.

    Even the holiday cookies were better than any other kind of cookie. I know cookies aren’t one of the four main food groups, but the sparkly blue sprinkles were so pretty! I love cookies.

 

1:30

    Stover: It’s been about an hour since I started this self-inflicted torture and there seems to be no end in sight. I’ve eaten so much sugar in the last hour that it’s starting to seriously affect my work. I find myself staring through the computer monitor and slurring my words. It’s as if I plowed right past the sugar-high phase and directly into the crash and burn.

    At least I’m still alive.

    David appears to be dead on the couch. I yell his name, but he does not answer. I try to put a cookie in his mouth so he can feel my pain, but his mouth won’t open. I put the cookie in his hand, force a piece of chocolate into his mouth to revive him, and leave for class.

 

    David: The Cool Whip-eggnog-Lucky Charms-marshmallow breakfast was so tasty that I had to take a quiet midday nap to let it settle in my cute little tummy.

    My nap was peaceful, so much so that when I woke up I found a beautiful cookie resting in the palm of my hand. I realized that a wonderful little sugar fairy must have left me the cookie, knowing how much I love sugar-based culinary delights.

    I devoured that cookie and Stover came by, tossing a chunk of Mr. Goodbar in my mouth along with the Christmas cookie. I’ve never woken up before to such a pleasant surprise.

 

2:30

    Stover: In math class I find my eyes glazing over, my head involuntarily shaking and nothing the teacher is saying is making any sense. All in all, a normal math class.

 

3:00

    Stover: When I get back David has been resurrected. He’s bouncing around like a giant monster baby. We make marshmallow-chocolate sandwiches and my body begins to go numb. The only thing I can feel is my stomach, and it does not feel right.

    I can only imagine the chemical reactions that are happening in my body. I attempt to put out the fire in my belly with half a bottle of sparkling cider. It does not help. The sugar is wearing down the inside of my cheeks and I imagine that’s what it’s doing to my insides.

 

    David: The holiday version of the Dollar Big Mac is like the silk blouse of an Ethiopian queen, wrapping my mouth and my abdomen with its delicate and crunchy flavors. Two all-marshmallow patties, chocolate candy bar sauce, a holiday cookie and a gingerbread cracker bun, the holiday Dollar Big Mac’s sweet mallows cushioned the hard ginger crackers as they both slid down my throat.

    The sweet flavors of the candy Dollar Big Mac has left me with such love for our day of sweets that the screen I am now typing on is becoming slightly blurry and it is difficult to see the words I type. Stover said my mind is becoming woozy because we’ve had too much sugar, but I won’t believe it. Chocolate, marshmallows, gingerbread crackers, cookies–they’re all my friends. They make me happy and I will continue to eat them…nothing else, I’ll eat nothing but holiday sugar sweets again!

 

4:30

    Stover: I think about cheating. All I want to do is go upstairs and buy some bread or meat, anything to soak up the sludge in my stomach. If I go to the hospital, will the Vanguard pay my bills? I doubt it.

    I don’t cheat. I decide to bite the bullet and work through the pain.

    I think the sugar has gone to David’s brain. He can’t stop moving, and I’m pretty sure he’s losing his mind. Then I realize I’ve been staring at the wall, and haven’t said anything for about 30 minutes. Maybe I’m the one who’s lost my mind. Then David shows me a poem he wrote about candy and I realize that’s not true.

 

    David: Lots of cookies through the day–I will eat them each and every way. I like the cookies, they taste so good. I like to eat as many as a bear could.

    I’ve had 15 cookies so far today, and my leg is bouncing as if it were on holiday. Today is holiday! Today! Today! Do you think they have sugar in Green Bay?

    I’d go to Green Bay if I could eat sugar all day, but you could make me go there by no other way…I think I’ll have another cookie. Oh look, it’s Stover: he’s dressed like a Wookie.

 

6:00

    Stover: I’ve never had a fruitcake before, and after eating one I’ll never once even think about eating it again. This is the devil’s food.

    Lord knows what is in this oddly heavy mass of shit, but it tastes worse than it looks. David and I take turns eating giant bites and for the first time I feel like vomiting. Even David, in all his sugar-spurred madness, appears to be disgusted.

 

    David: They tried to take my holiday fruit from me. They tried to take it when I was eating it. They tried to tell me it was a “fruitcake,” but I knew that was nonsense. They said it was disgusting–that only old people eat it. Lies, foma, deception. They won’t steal my delicious fruits and nuts!

    

6:05

    David: I’ve eaten it all. They’ve poisoned it, they must have. I know my fruit could not have tasted so sour. It was the poison that made the fruit taste like old, moldy cow poop. They put some kind of toxic bread around my precious, precious fruit. I know what they were thinking: “If we can’t have David’s fruit, we’ll poison it–we’ll make it ‘fruitcake’–and he’ll die. Ha!”

Well I won’t die. My holiday fruit will help me live on.

 

6:30

    Stover: I just realize I stink. Not a normal smell, but a sickly, sweet, rotten, candy smell. David does too. What is happening to our bodies? The smell seems to be coming out of our pores and we become the pariahs of the office. No one wants to talk to us and when they must, they look disgusted.

    I run up to the bathroom to wash my hands and face. I look into the mirror and it looks like I’m staring at a stranger. My eyes are red, my face looks sweaty and puffy, and I swear I’ve gained five pounds. God, I hate candy.

 

    David: I’ve made it to the end and now I’ll pass into the fifth dimension of holiday glory! The holiday fruits, the holiday chocolate, and yes, even the holiday eggnog will help me defeat all those who’ve conspired against me!

    Now, I’ll rule them all…