My Big Secret

I finally came clean about it. Everyone knows.

Sometimes, after the really bad days, I need a pick-me-up. There's only one thing that can pull me out of that bad-day coma. Sometimes I even need two hits, one right after school and one on my way home.

I'm talking about Poptarts. The nutritional equivalent to spreading jam on cardboard and sprinkling it with confectionary sugar. My addiction can't be helped, and I finally shared it with my team last Wednesday when we had a potluck to send off my principal to her new school.

It's too easy to give in to the temptation, especially given the vending machine situation at my school. To save electricity, the machines and the lights in the teacher's lounge operate on a motion sensor, so when you walk in the room they all boot up and light up as if to say "Ah, hello Sara. We knew you'd be back." It makes me feel like I'm in some kind of messed up abusive relationship with the thing, always crawling back to it when things go bad.

75 cents and an E6 later, and I'm walking down the hall chewing the crusts off one of the tarts like a desperate raccoon. On especially bad days, I do so cradling a Diet Dr. Pepper with my free arm, but only if I can scrape enough change together to get both. Junkie habits.

The funniest parts of the whole situation happened in the past week, which was hands down the worst week I've had this year. Circumstances that make me especially vulnerable to my vending machine Poptart relationship. The first happened on Monday, when I beelined for the machine right from the bus lot, clutching quarters in my hand to make sure I didn't drop any. Clunk clunk clunk and I have a strawberry Poptart in my hand. Sweet relief. I ate them in approximately one minute and forty-seven seconds.

After working for two more hours, I realized that one was not going to be enough for the day. I would need another on my way out. Another 75 cents squeezed into my hand. I checked the hallway before going in to make sure no one would catch me getting another one. Brown sugar cinnamon was the next flavor... perfect. I deposited my money and waited anxiously for it to drop. It didn't. It was stuck.

At that moment, I had a decision to make. Clearly, some higher power was trying to tell me, "Don't do it Sara! Leave the Poptart! Just go!"

Did I listen? Of course not. I checked the hallway again and then body slammed the machine three times before the Poptart fell out into its proper place. Was I ashamed? Yes. But once that cold toaster pastry got into my mouth, I didn't care.

The second situation happened the next day, which was somehow worse than Monday. I didn't have time to get my money before taking my kids out to the bus lot, so I grabbed my wallet and walked back after doing some stuff in my room.

Let me preface this by saying that the vending machine can get kind of testy. That day was one of those days. I walked away 15 minutes later $2.75 poorer because my quarters got eaten. To be clear, you can buy two entire boxes of Poptarts for that price at Walmart. I couldn't stop feeding them into the slot, holding on to the vain hope that maybe, MAYBE this quarter would be credited on the machine. They never were. At that moment, I hit rock bottom.

That's why I told my team about the ongoing problem. The itch that constantly needed to be scratched. On Monday, I'll greet them at our weekly data meeting with, "Hello, my name is Sara. And I'm a Poptart-aholic."

Pray for me.