Sometimes I think of opening a diner. I’d call it “The Bad For You Cafe.” On the menu would be a whole range of comfort foods and indulgences. Biscuits and gravy. Chicken fried steak. Mac and cheese (with emphasis on cheese). Everything that one might crave and swear to never eat again.
If you want to eat there you’d have to join the membership club. You would be issued a card and we’d track what you ordered and ate. Everything on the menu would have a frequency code. Order the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. Enjoy. But you can’t have it again for 60 days. And you can’t have anything else on the menu with the same code. Come back tomorrow and you can have a nice spring mix salad and maybe a bowl of gazpacho. No limit on those.
I had an order of chicken fried steak the other day. It was amazing. But I won’t be having that again for a while. I couldn’t tell you when I last had it. It might have been years ago. Have it every week and it’s common, uninteresting, and eventually, unwanted. Maybe even deadly. But once in a blue moon and it’s a treat. The same thing goes for chocolate cake. And beer. Cookies. Whisky.
I dearly love a little excess. But it can only be excess if you have a baseline, a norm. Treats like these are much more delicious when it’s something special. Indulge every day and you are weighed down by these things (in this case, quite literally). I can enjoy my personal indulgences because I do them without guilt. I’m not breaking a rule. I’m celebrating something special, something rare.
Make your list of indulgences. Craft your own Bad For You Cafe membership card. Save up these excesses, and then, then you indulge in them, mark them off. And then, satisfied and satiated, take pleasure in the fact that you won’t be indulging in them for some time to come.
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