VIOLA - I ran around the house holding a saggy plastic bag, crying, “Why would he do that?” to no one except the dogs, whose ears perked up when they heard me yapping. The bag, which had been left on top of my refrigerator, contained two raspberry Danishes, bought as day-old bakery and now four days old. 

Even after four days, the Danishes weren’t hard and crusty, but soft and moist. “Why would he dothat?” I asked again, throwing the bag down on my kitchen counter like it was contaminated. I put my hand to my head and muttered, “Oh, my gosh.” 

I walked into the other room but quickly came back. Snatching up the bag, I took out one pastry and sank my teeth into it while silently saying, “Why-why-why,” which was like a curse in the sugar-free world I’d been inhabiting until that moment.

I had bought the baked goods—on sale for the bargain price of one dollar—for Dane, who had kindly been critter-sitting the masses while I went to Milwaukee to visit my family. When I went in to pay for my gas, I saw the Danishes and decided to surprise him, the ultimate doughnut-freak. So why had he left them here for me?

Dane successfully hid his doughnut addiction from me the first three years we dated. One day in his car, I found a telltale bag, held it up like a dirty diaper and, with my nose pointing into the air, said, “Did you eat a doughnut?”

“Yes,” Dane answered, looking like a five-year-old caught coloring on his bedroom wall.

I was shocked. 

“I never even knew you like doughnuts,” I said.

“I love them,” he replied.

“Why didn’t I know that? I never saw you eat one in three years.” And it dawned on me that he was hiding his doughnut obsession from me, Ms. I-Eat-Healthy-All-the-Time.

Whooosh! Pandora’s box of junk food opened wide. One little doughnut indiscretion and soon every time we stopped at a Kwik Trip while traveling, we’d both come out with something not good for us: for Dane, his doughnuts, and for me, my hot chocolate mixed with decaf coffee. Sometimes there would be Popchips, and occasionally chocolate-covered peanuts.

Like a gateway drug, that lone doughnut bag on the floor of Dane’s car opened up a sugar binge that didn’t stop for two years and another 20 pounds. 

And then I cracked down. No sugar!

Not in a car. Not on a star.

Not in my mouth. Not in my house.

Until now: two day-old and then four-day-old raspberry Danishes later.