Fro-Yo Anonymous

There’s this new frozen yogurt shop in town, Sweet Spoons. It’s about 4.2 miles from my house, give or take. I go a lot. But I go for a lot of different reasons, like if it’s unseasonably warm outside and frozen yogurt sounds perfect, or if I’m driving by on my way to work and need something sweet, or if I have an hour to kill with the girls before my son gets out of school and they need a snack, or if I’m awake. All of those things make me feel like I should go there.

On Sunday, the weather was beautiful, sixty-five degrees and sunny, so I ran three miles to the gym, worked out for thirty minutes, and then ran home. I wish increased physical fitness was its own reward, but it’s not, so my husband and I loaded up the kids and went to the yogurt shop. On Monday, which was supposed to be one of my two days off of work, I had to go in for a couple of hours to make some flyers and I figured a monotonous job like that would go faster if I had some frozen yogurt keeping me company.

Tuesday, I managed not to go to Sweet Spoons, but I have to say, I wasn’t as happy yesterday and I think there’s a correlation. Today, Wednesday, my mom was in town and wanted to try the new frozen yogurt shop I’ve been raving about. Enough said; you had me at “today”. Tomorrow night is my monthly girls’ night out with my church friends, and it was decided, by someone other than me, actually, that we should meet at Sweet Spoons. I mentioned some, but not all, of this to my best friend on the phone today and she was like, “Did you fill up your card already?” (They have a frequent customer card where you buy nine and the tenth one is free.) “Are you kidding me,” I said, “I turned in my third card today. Forget free yogurt, I’ve almost earned enough points for a trip to Cancun.”

I’m not sure why I can’t quit going, but I blame it on Hollywood. I blame a lot of things on Hollywood. For instance, on Monday, I really really wanted to rob an armored truck or knock off a bank because my husband and I rented The Town and they really glamorized the life of armed robbery. Here I am, a thirty-three year old housewife, folding laundry in the bonus room of my house in the suburbs, and at the end of the movie, I turned to my husband and said, “Do you think any of my friends would wanna do that with me?” He laughed and said, “Your friends scrapbook and do recipe exchanges; I don’t think they’d know what to do with an assault rifle.” I laid the pair of Minnie Mouse size four underpants I was folding down on the appropriate pile and said, “Maybe I need new friends.”

By the next morning, the adrenaline rush of the movie had worn off and I was pretty content with my law-abiding life. But, I got way off track there. Sorry. I blame Hollywood for my yogurt addiction because of that movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a movie I always mistakenly call Willy Wonka.

When you’re dieting, and I always am and always will be to some extent, you feel like your underprivileged, like Charlie. And you feel like your life is dull and gray sometimes. So when I walked into that shop the first time and was visually seduced by all of the bright colors and fun decorations, it felt a little like I won the golden ticket. And haven’t we all been waiting to win one of those ever since we saw that movie?

And the cool part is you get to make your own treat! There are eight flavors of fat free frozen yogurt, occasionally one of them will just be “low fat”, but I avoid those whenever humanly possible. (There was a German Chocolate Cake one that, I promise you, no man could’ve turned down.) You can sample any and all of them in these little paper cups like they have at the dentist, but now someone has finally put them to good use. Redeemed them, if you will. And once you choose your flavor (s) (sss), you can go through and put any number of toppings on. We’re talking basics like strawberries, sprinkles or Oreo cookie pieces, to more unorthodox Lucky Charms, cantaloupe, kiwi, cheesecake pieces, or even yogurt chips. How decadent is that, to put yogurt chips on your frozen yogurt?! Finally, you weigh your concoction and pay. I had two flavors and six toppings today and it was $3.15!

I haven’t gained any weight since I started going there, but if you had any idea how much I exercise, you’d know that it’s probably the one thing standing in the way of me losing anymore. Not so much that I go there, but just that I go there every day. I might need to check myself into some kind of rehab. If I can find a facility that treats yogurt addicts, that is.