Spider:

It's a dangerous thing, this Teacher Appreciation week. Each day at lunch, we have circled the mail room, listening to each other's mutterings. "...That one's a sausage cassarole- very tasty..." "...Don't get the yellow cake unless you like coconut." "Did you try the chex mix? It has tobasco..." "Ooh! Someone brought mini-cheesecakes!"

I have been driven to trade my usual after school snack for small samplings of these fine selections from the Junior League cookbook. On Friday, they always do a cake-walk by drawing numbers for labeled boxes brought by the parents association. Last year, I received several small dessert loaves. That worked well, as I could quickly divest myself of flavors I would not eat (why do people think banana bread is tasty? ew). This year, I was handed a yellow cake with chocolate frosting from Fresh Market.

This fills me with mixed emotions. I would like to keep it all for myself, evisioning the baroque pleasure of divesting myself of work clothes and sitting in the middle of my bed with nothing but this box of cake and fork. But, that way madness lies. I have managed to get rid of just over half of it by giving my last class pieces as they finished a vocabulary quiz. I am going to try and make myself put it in the freezer when I get home.

It's not really that great a cake, anyhow; the cake part's somewhat dry. My mother makes better. It's just that I have always held desserts in high regard as a special indulgence. I have to remember that this is more of a pacifier, something to placate us during the last seven weeks of school-- as though the sheer insanity of special schedules in May while you're trying to prepare students for a final and get their grades and comments in on time, too, can be modified by sufficient pre-application of butter and extra fine granulated sugar.

Part of me wants to embrace that philosophy, saying, "Medicate me now, Betty Crocker!" But, I'm no pushover; I can stand strong in the face of baked goods. Just, maybe...after one more peice.