Reaching into the icebox and taking the lid off of my last fifteen minutes.
I have just discovered the greatest thing, probably, ever. Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked Ice Cream. A mere recitation of its constituent parts (chocolate & vanilla ice cream, brownie and cookie dough) fails to do justice to the poetry within. This ice cream is impossibly good. The guy who discovered the combination of peanut butter and chocolate was a hack. This recipe, friends, is real genius.
At no point does a man, in a state of nature, cease consuming this frozen confection until the pint is spent. As the first spoonful enters his system, the subject's body begins releasing endorphines, his eyes roll back in his head, and the reptilian core of his brain urgently states: "This is good. I should keep doing this as long as I can." On a molecular level, your body has been programmed to understand one thing: that it is better to be eating Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked Ice Cream than not to be eating Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked Ice Cream.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, addiction is "characterized by three major elements: (a) compulsion to seek and take the drug, (b) loss of control in limiting intake, and (c) emergence of a negative emotional state when access to the drug is prevented." In other words, we all scream for ice cream. To paraphrase an author writing about drug addicition: "At a certain point, [Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked] usage ceases to be a voluntary action: this is the onset of addiction. The positive reinforcement of the sensation of euphoria eventually alters the brain so that the use of [Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked] is obligatory." Exactly.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, addiction is "characterized by three major elements: (a) compulsion to seek and take the drug, (b) loss of control in limiting intake, and (c) emergence of a negative emotional state when access to the drug is prevented." In other words, we all scream for ice cream. To paraphrase an author writing about drug addicition: "At a certain point, [Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked] usage ceases to be a voluntary action: this is the onset of addiction. The positive reinforcement of the sensation of euphoria eventually alters the brain so that the use of [Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked] is obligatory." Exactly.
Now, I know that this product lists among its ingredients, in separate entries: sugar, liquid sugar, brown sugar and corn syrup. Also (again, listed separately): eggs, egg yolks and egg whites. I know that it contains heroic amounts of cholesterol, sufficient to permanently alter my body chemistry. But it's only at the bottom of the container that you can find the secret ingredient: a layer of fresh regret, laced with bits of real shame.
I am still hungry.
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