Yes, I’m an Oreoholic. And It’s All My Wife’s Fault

I’ve been having dreams about cookies.

Some men dream about getting stranded on a tropical island with a “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit model, or of winning the lottery, or making some great golf shots…or just being able to remember why you walked into a room.

But I’ve been seeing Oreos gayly dancing over fences of chocolate chip cookies and through fields of Girl Scout thin mints.

My wife is at fault, of course.

She looked at me the other day as I came through the back door.

“Do you know what people see first when you come through a doorway?” she asked.

“My nice smile?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“What then?”

“Your pot belly. It appears a couple of minutes before you’re able to direct the remainder of your lardbucket self through,” she said in her best Weight Watcher Queen voice.

My wife has a way with words. She, of course, watches her weight carefully. Turns out, she’s watching my weight, too.

Personally, I think this weightwatching thing is a great program. My wife cooks all these nutritious low-calorie dishes for herself that anyone who hadn’t eaten for a week and loves kale would treasure. She shies from all the authentic culinary pleasure this life offers — the ones on my side of the dinner table: pizza, subs, Baconators, Reese’s Pieces sundaes. Cider doughnuts…stuff like that.

And certainly, she doesn’t want to hear about Oreos.

One of the things that endeared me to my sweet wife in the early years was the way she could pack away a complete package of Oreos. Give her a big glass of milk, an unopened package, and watch the crumbs fly.

I loved the way my wife dispatched Oreos because I have a similar affinity for peanut-butter-andjelly sandwiches, which I can make disappear by the loaf-of-breadful.

My wife and I used to play these little food games when we were on diets. I’d bring home a package of Oreos and put it someplace where she couldn’t find it right away. Then, right before we’d go to bed, I’d eat one cookie…just one.

“What’s that on your face?!!” my wife would ask a few minutes later as she sits bolt upright in bed and stares down at me while my head lays to rest on the pillow. You might not think that asking such a question is a big deal, but it’s really quite an accomplishment — the lights in the bedroom are out. It’s pitch black. You’d think she couldn’t possibly see my face in the dark.

Wrong.

“Are those cookie crumbs on your face?” she asks.

I say nothing.

“Are those Oreo double-stuff cookie crumbs on your face?” she asks. Now she’s shaking my shoulders for an answer.

I say nothing.

Her index finger is poking me in the chest. “I told you not to bring those things into the house.”

I say nothing. But now I’m smiling.

“Where are they, you rat?”

So I tell her where they are — on the kitchen counter downstairs.

When we were in our first 20 years of marriage, when we were dealing with four kids in the house with us, she would rumble out of bed and disappear down the stairs. A few minutes later, she’d reappear in bed.

“Did you leave any Oreos for your husband or children?” I’d ask.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d say. “And it’s all your fault.”

The longer I’ve been married, the more certain I am that everything is my fault.

“You made me eat all those Oreos,” she’d say, pulling up the bedcovers.

“So what if you ate a few cookies?” I ask. “Who’s going to care?”

“I’m going to care!” she said, sitting up in bed again. “I have to face all those people at Weight Watchers and stand up in the middle of the meeting and say, ‘My name is Gayle…and I am an Oreoholic.’ I have to get out my calculator and show them how many points I’ve blown away. Then all the people in the class will wag their fingers at me and say, ‘Shame! Shame!’”

“But honey,” I said reassuringly, in my best former-scienceteacher voice, “those cookies you ate have no calories so you don’t have to confess to anything.”

Despite the darkness in the bedroom, I knew she was scowling at me.

“Come on,” she said, “everyone knows that cookies are loaded with calories.” I hear in her voice a certain desperation for a compelling argument for Oreo-eating forgiveness.

“Do you remember that old philosophical discussion everybody had in high school? The one about, ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?’”

“Sure,” she said.

“Well, science has proven that if no animal is there to hear the tree fall, no ‘sound’ is made. And if no one is there to see you eat a cookie, the cookie has no calories.”

“Come on...”

“I’m serious,” I told her. “and I bet you didn’t know that cookies are held together by special organic chemical bonds that absorb energy when they’re broken — and that energy comes from the calories in the cookie. As soon as you break a cookie, all the calories get absorbed. You never see a fat person eat a broken cookie.”

“Get serious…”

“I am serious,” I say with heartfelt sincerity. “Haven’t you ever eaten a cookie that’s been in an open package for too long in humid weather? Doesn’t that cookie taste a little soggy and heavy? It’s because all the calories are still in it.”

“That’s amazing,” my wife says. “Do you mean that because I ate those Oreos in the dark where nobody could see me and because I like to break them into pieces to dip in milk, that they don’t have any calories?”

“Not a one.”

“Thank you, dear,” my wife says, kissing me on the forehead, leaving an outline of Oreo cookie lips on my skin.

“Sleep tight, darling,” I say, and off to gentle dreamland she goes. My wife and I have been married for 53 years. She still does Weight Watchers, and she looks great.

By Melody Burri

to retirement, I got some sage advice from my wife, Rebecca. She suggested that going from 50 hours a week at the chamber down to zero might be a shock to my system. So I resurrected a hobby from my youth and started a trading card business online and I sell at area trading card shows. I also got involved as a volunteer with the Victor Farmington Library and still do some volunteering at the Ontario County Chamber of Commerce.

Q: How has your own life changed since retiring?

A: I have more time on my hands but it’s easy to fill. The big change is that I get to be more selective about what I spend my time doing.

Q: What was one unexpected challenge you encountered, and how are you handling it?

A: I thought I’d get to nap a lot. But nope, I’m having too much fun! Let’s see: take a nap or play with the grandkids? It’s no contest.

Q: What advice would you give to others about thriving in retirement?

Mitch Donovan, 74

Retired Victor Chamber of Commerce president talks about career, trading cards, trust and family

Q: Of your many career accomplishments, which has been the most fulfilling?

A: I was fortunate to have two careers. One in newspaper advertising and one working for the Victor Chamber of Commerce. While I fondly remember helping retail clients market their businesses, my chamber work was more gratifying. One annual project sticks in my mind: Hang Around Victor Day. It was more work than I ever imagined, but building that into what it became was the most fulfilling part of the job. It reached so many people on so many levels that the memories still stay with me. Kitty Van Bortel told me she remembers when ‘Hang Around Victor Day’ was just two tents on Main Street. Over those 10 years, we came a long, long way.

Q: What hobbies and passions are giving you joy these days?

A: As the retirement calculator on my phone counted down the days

A: A couple years after I retired, my wife did, too. We both agree that retiring at different times was helpful for us. It may be for others as well, if that choice is available. Also, I didn’t think much about saving and planning for retirement when I was early in my career. But, eventually working with a professional to plan our retirement helped a great deal. People keep asking me if I like my new lifestyle and of course, the answer is yes.

Q: What’s one core value that has served you well through your career and into retirement?

A: It’s all about trust. I trust the people around me and they trust me. I think I got that right.

Q: What’s one dream you have for your community and the people and businesses in it?

A: There’s always room for growth and improvement. I’m not done growing as a person and Victor isn’t done growing as a community. Change can be uncomfortable and that’s OK. So let’s explore some exciting opportunities.