A Streetcar Named Burrito

I did six hours today at our resident craft store where I'm a fancycashier (I'm like a cashier, but I carry keys-- it's a weird job.) About halfway through the day, I decided I was hungry. And damn if I didn't want a burrito. Oh yes, a burrito, the size of my face. With the hottest salsa, all wrapped up in that delicious 400 calorie tortilla.    I'm checking people through my line and doing my business, and this is on my mind. I want. that. burrito.

I'm actually surprised I didn't say
"Your change is four dollars and burrito cents!"
to someone at some point.

And, at some point, though all of the beeping and glitter, I started telling myself. Why not? You haven't had a burrito in almost four weeks! Qdoba is super-close to the craft store! Just go get one after dinner! In that moment, I listened to myself. I decided:
Yes! I get to have a burrito!
And you know what!
I'm going to eat the whole thing!
I didn't really eat lunch today, it'll be fine!

I am at the craft store, so I can't see these red flags through all the glitter.

Ha! No one can stop me!
I'll be home alone!
No one will see!
No one will know!
I'll just get cash out and Tarver won't even know...

"I need some backup red flags here. Backup flags to the front please."

When I started rationalizing basically stealing money from my husband I had to take a few steps back. Well, I couldn't because when I made this realization I was actually in my car at the crossroads between going home to make myself dinner and driving to the burrito store. I drove home. I made myself dinner. I sat quietly. Thinking about it now, my judgement of myself kind of fluctuates between feeling proud that I didn't go buy a burrito, and feeling disgusted with myself that spent my entire afternoon thinking about burritos. Clearly we don't need to talk too much about not buying a burrito, because that's summarized in one word, "AWESOMLENT!" Excellent and Awesome.

Let's talk about how I spent alllll afternoon obsessing over burritos.

Obsessing is weird for me. Let me explain a little bit of my thought process. Let's get inside my brain for a moment here.

Hey guys! Guess what the hypothalamus controls?
The Four F's! Fighting Fleeing Feeding and Mating!
Ahaha... that guy know's what I'm talkin' about! 

Clearly being a graduate student my brain is usually filled with complex thoughts about human relationships, abnormal psychology, cybernetics and penguins. But sometimes I'm being a cashier or trying to sleep or exercising or just trying to get through a really painful meeting. In these moments, I have to do something with my brain or I will probably spontaneously combust.

It's something my Momma mentioned in passing years and years ago, but she said something like, "And I couldn't sleep, so I tried to see if I could remember the words to every song in The Sound of Music" I imagine I was in high school or middle school and for some reason that stuck with me. So, usually I just pick one song and try to get all the way through it getting the melody and lyrics right. For instance, it turns out whatever key "One Hand, One Heart," from West Side Story is in, it is really hard to think about with the ambient cadence of the craft store.

It's an A major cash register.

So it's a mental workout in a way. If something particularly awful or awkward is happening (I'm looking straight at you, meetings) I often recite the lyrics to a happy song in my head like "Don't Stop Believing," So I do that a lot when I'm cashiering.

Anyway, the point of that whole spiel was to tell you that the burrito thoughts were actually kind of a weird thing. I rarely actually fixate on food, because I'm pretty good at keeping my brain busy. I especially don't fixate on just one food.

Yes, it turns out I do know every word
to every song in "The Sound of Music"

So let's talk about this. What was going on for me today that my normal musical-fueled thought process was interrupted by the soulless, continuing mantra of "BURRITO. BURRITO. BURRITO. BURRITO."

Except maybe breadsticks.
You know I would never cheat on you, breadsticks.

I'm wondering now if "depriving" myself of something I'm basically addicted to has led to a disruption in my generally pleasant thought-process? Am I having burrito-related withdrawal symptoms? No, let's be real. It's qdoba, not heroin. It just really threw me off. I figure I'll do my 8-hour shift at the craft store tomorrow and see if it creeps in there again. Maybe it means it's time for me to go back to the burrito store and have them cut a burrito in half for me? Maybe it means I haven't done enough work as far as learning to love vegetables?

Your thoughts, sweet interwebz?

I need collaborative informations!