Temptation

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself. I’d wager that Rita Mae Brown wasn’t talking about avoiding pizza when she wrote this, but the meaning behind her notable quote applies to much of the human condition. If there is something we want, we have within our ability infinite means of obtaining what’s desired. People scheme, lie, manipulate, find loopholes, and dodge bullets by crafty subterfuge on a daily basis for everything from international politics to job performance reviews to who’s walking the family dog before dinner.

We don’t need someone to show us how. We’re more than happy to walk through that door, unabashed and untroubled, all in a singular quest for what we want. And because the people most likely reading this are part of the Apple Generation, you want it packaged in a nice neat box, an all-in-one sleekly –sheathed capsule of delight where you can use a slingshot to launch angry birds at hapless swine.

The point of this blog is to accomplish something over a two-week period, however significant, which we would not normally consider doing. My boyfriend and I, while staving off goals of grandeur, wanted to start small and feasibly with a basic two-week task. Eating pizza is a dinnertime staple which millions of Americans divulge in weekly. And whether or not you have Dominos on speed dial or your local pizzeria knows your cat’s birthday, we’ve come to celebrate pizza as a mark of happy times: Friday and school is out, Friday and work is over, Sunday and it’s the Superbowl, Trueblood marathon and marinara sauce looks like blood! Awesome!

So would we be able to function without our beloved go-to for 14 days? It can’t be that hard. We’ll just eat something else…like that box of expired Hamburger Helper which has been lurking in the shadows of the cupboard, gathering an army of dust bunnies, ready to exact its revenge on our insides. This is all just an example of course. Dust doesn’t live in our kitchen cabinets.

The first thing about temptation, if you consciously plan to ignore what it is you seek, is to remove the obvious from sight. I should have just thrown out that Celeste pizza I’d stashed in the freezer for a night when John was at class. Or at the very least hidden it behind a mound of frozen vegetable bags because anyone knows I won’t be rooting around through those. But I had forgotten and on such a night when home alone, the very first night of our challenge, I found myself walking habitually to the freezer and reaching for said pizza.

My hands clasped familiarly around the box edge. I didn’t even mind the chilling brush of ice crystals clinging to my fingertips because soon enough it would be baked and in my belly. But then, as I went to tear it open, I remembered. And came the instant reasoning of how I could work this advantageously…i.e. still get to eat my pizza. I was hungry, we were trying to save money, we hadn’t gone to Safeway yet this week, remembering our two-week challenge was such a brief thought perhaps I could unthink it altogether.

But no. Ridden with guilt, I was sure to crumble by the time John got home and he’d never look at me the same way again. He’d know I couldn’t be trusted, that I couldn’t obtain goals. Our future life would be tainted by this one ugly act of betrayal, because blowing the inaugural pizza night challenge symbolized larger flaws in my otherwise sparkling personality. This is a very dramatic response which ricocheted through my head, yes, though when confronted with failure on such a simple goal, it’s not hard to imagine how you’d behave under worse and far more serious circumstances.

I’m sure John would still love me if I’d eaten the pizza and we’d joke about it an hour later, though I would know. And I pride myself on strength of character. The pizza went back and I had a bowl of rice instead. Mission accomplished, temptation avoided, relationship still in tact. This was a game and it deserved to be played well.