You Otter Know

Once again, I've developed that sweets after you eat disease that may have been partially to blame for a weight gaining stint I had in the early 2000s. It's not bad when you're in the midst of it... I mean, when do Twix taste bad?... but once it's piled on top of the too-much fish and chips you just devoured, man, does it suck. It literally rips all the energy you had stored for staying awake on the couch and redirects it to digesting the chemical mess you've plundered your body with. You end up fat, crooked and in pain that must be a pre-cursor to a scrip for Prilosec.

It all started with an innocent enough box of Otter Pops. You remember those, the little plastic straw of frozen kool-aid that creates a tangy juice deposit in the bottom of the package, the treat with the just right feel of ice... not too hard, not too soft, the after-school snack you relied on when you first got your braces or during a bout of strep throat, the dessert that got you in trouble for leaving the snipped tops laying all over the kitchen counter and the sucked-dry remnants all over the living room. (I've also known them as Flavor-Ice, but there always seem to be too many oranges and greens in the Flavor-Ice brand.) My box of 24 Otter Pops has grown into a box of 100, literally ripped open at the top and then checked every hour to see if the freezing process had reached Louie-Bloo Raspberry.

They are so good. They are so only 15 calories. They are so a gateway dessert.

What Louie-Bloo and his gang of Little Orphan Orange, Strawberry Short Kook, Poncho Punch (he's a randy one!), Alexander the Grape and Sir Isaac Lime have done is make me a sweet junkie. They've conditioned me to want the sugar cleanse after dinner. They've made gum seem like a dentist's recommended substitute.

A word to the wise, or at least those who want to stave off the sweet after you eat disease, step away from the Otter Pops. They're not worth it, man.