My Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has that one thing (or, you know, more than one thing) that they know they shouldn't like, but they do anyways. Even if you live your interests out shamelessly, there's still one of two things that you might not boast about on a daily occurrence and broadcast to the entire universe. Or maybe you would. Regardless, a guilty pleasure is not just a great song from ¡Viva la Cobra !, Cobra Starship's 2007 album.

I don't include things like boybands in my guilty pleasures list. Everyone and their grandmother knows that I would drop everything for a member of One Direction and would give up almost anything for tickets to a Jonas Brothers reunion concert if there ever was one. I'm pretty shameless in my love for Disney, including princesses, DCOMs and current TV shows that I am probably too old to be indulging in.


Picture this: it's midnight, everyone in my apartment is asleep. I can't sleep, for whatever reason. I'm probably thinking about Harry Styles or the impending mess my life is about to become, inevitably, when I have to pretend to be an adult or whatever people do after college. I treated myself at Trader Joe's that week, meaning there is no doubt a package of cookie butter cheesecake bites sitting unopened (or more accurately, open and partially devoured because I have zero self control). I know I should brush my teeth and just go to sleep or start chugging some water or something to diminish the urge to eat a cheesecake bite at midnight. I stare at my door handle, look at my computer, stare at my door handle, look back at my computer. Eventually, the pull is too strong and I tip-toe to the kitchen in the dark. I hide my face as I pass my roommates' doors even though I know they can't see me. I stand with the freezer door open, contemplating my life as I dig out the package from the back of the freezer and pull one piece out. The another. then another. Then potentially another. It comes to the point where I'm not sure how many pieces I've shamefully eaten in the dark while standing in front of the freezer. That's my kind of guilty pleasure.

Is my lipstick collection considered a guilty pleasure? I normally don't talk about the amount of lipstick that I own on a day to day basis. People know, of course, that I love lipstick. Do they know that my lipstick collection takes up an entire drawer and needs to be split into spring/summer and autumn/winter lipsticks in order for them all to fit? Do they know that my collection ends up being somewhere around the mid-eighties range? I'm afraid to even admit the cost of all of them, though I did tally it up and let me tell you...it's not pretty. It was probably the first time I've ever properly used an Excel sheet since my biology lab days. I went straight up professional to try to prove to myself that my collection wasn't that expensive and teared up when I realized how much I've spent on lipstick over the year. At least I wear them all, right? Right?!

I feel like a lot of my guilty pleasures relate to food. As you may know, I stopped drinking coffee at night in fall of 2015 after a few lectures from my roommates on why that extra caffeine wasn't helping me at all. But damn, there are just some nights where tea doesn't cut it and you just are jonsing for a cup! This involves some more sneaking around, pretending that I'm using the Keurig for my tea rather than the kettle on the stove. Smiling and denouncing the coffee smell that is clearly radiating from the kitchen and from my cup. I've most certainly used the line "it's just tea that smells like coffee" before shuffling off to my room and locking myself in so nobody can see me breaking my own rule. What is that thing that the kids say nowadays? Rules were meant to be broken?

Do you have any guilty pleasures?