Sugar Tooth

Now although it is true that many if not most children have a sweet tooth, I think it would be more appropriate to say that as a child I had a whole mouth full of sweet teeth.  I was a sugar junkie from a young age and much like a hummingbird I used it to fuel my active lifestyle.

Now when some people say they have a sweet tooth what they are saying is that they like sweet things such as chocolate bars and cakes and cookies.  Don't get me wrong I was a fiend for those as well, but when it came right down to it I was mostly attracted to the main ingredient in those - the sugar.

My candy preferences reflected this as I was a big fan of SweeTarts, those oh so sour and sweet powdery candies.  They came in a long roll and I used to devour them as fast as I could peel the wrapper.  For a while they made a sort of whopper sized SweeTart that was about as big as a half dollar and very powdery, almost like biting into soft chalk.  They also came out with a chewy SweeTart that was just a different softer and chewy texture with the same sour and sugary blast.  My penchant for this treat did not go unnoticed by my parents and other relatives who would speculate on whether I was dissolving my teeth with these candies.  Mind you they did not actually suggest I stop eating them, but I think they all had some sort of bet that I would be toothless by the time I entered high school.

There were worse choices than the SweeTarts out there and one of them was called Pixy Stix. This candy was packaged in a straw and was supposed to be a drink mix that you poured into a glass of water.  Never did I ever dilute the power of this candy with something like that.  I opened the little straw and poured it directly into my mouth.  The taste was nearly identical to SweeTarts but without the chewing.  It was even produced by the same company and I thought it was very kind of them to make their product available this way in the case my family was right and my teeth did actually dissolve.

The same company also made a product called Lik-M-Aid.  This was the Pixy Stix powder but now in a packet and came with a short thick marshmallow flavored dipping stick.  You licked the stick and stuck it into the powder and then licked the stick again.  One might think that marshmallows don't need any extra sugar, but the taste was spectacular.  Its only drawback was that it was very messy. 

Now I did eat other candies as well, but these were my foundation candies.  They were there to provide a no nonsense sugar buzz without anything getting in the way.  They also were cheap and plentiful and to someone living on a 25 cents per week allowance they were right in my price range. 

Yet even their plentiful nature did not always get me through to the next point of acquisition, so I had to make do with what I could scrounge.  It is puzzling to me now that although I was allowed almost unlimited access to candy, except right before meals, my mother was a stickler about trying to limit my access to actual sugar in the house.  Perhaps this had nothing to do with my health but was rather a way to make sure the home larder did not succumb to my relentless consumption.  Even with her careful monitoring I was able to get around the restrictions.

My usual prey in a home situation was brown sugar.  Here are the steps necessary to get to the brown gold:

1. Make sure you are alone in the kitchen.  Since your mother is almost always home when you are home it is best to wait for a time she is watching soap operas.  Make sure your sister is doing something in her room because she will rat you out faster than lightning.
2. When the coast is clear get a tablespoon out of the drawer quietly.
3. Climb up on the counter next to the sink.  The brown sugar is kept on the highest shelf in the little cabinet to the right.  Open the cabinet quietly.
4. While kneeling on the cabinet, reach up and get the brown sugar box.  Quietly open the top of the box and unroll the wax paper.
5. Stick in the tablespoon.  If you are lucky this will be a relatively new box and the brown sugar will be soft enough to get a scoop out.  If you are unlucky then it will be hard as a brick and you will have to chip off a piece.
6. Eat as much of the brown sugar as you think you can get away with while still kneeling on the counter.  
7. When you lose your nerve or satisfy your sugar hunger, take one more spoon full and then close the box and put it back in the cabinet.
8. Climb down off the counter and wash the spoon, putting it back in the drawer.

Using these methods I was 100% successful and never was caught in the act.  I was however suspected of brown sugar theft but the evidence was flimsy (I could have used that tablespoon for anything) and would not have held up in a court of law (how could you know exactly how much brown sugar was left in the box from the last time you used it for baking months ago?)

But sometimes my mother was not watching soap operas or my sister was reading or doing who knows what in the living room which had a clear view of the kitchen.  For this kind of situation I had to use cunning and subterfuge.

1. Ask your mother if you can have a slice of bread.  She is distracted by something she is doing but just curious enough at this request to ask a couple of follow up questions. "Just a piece of bread?"  Yes.  "You really want just a piece of bread?"  Yes.  "Okay."
2. Go to the kitchen and take the loaf of bread over to the wall that blocks the view of your sister.  You have prepared for this moment by making sure the sugar bowl is in this area too.
3. Open the bread wrapper and remove a single slice of white bread.  Put the bread slice on the counter and close the bread wrapper.
4. Grab the sugar bowl and take the top off silently.  Carefully sprinkle sugar over the entire surface of the bread.  The whiteness of the sugar is not an exact match to the off-whiteness of the bread, but it is near enough unless someone inspects it closely. 
5. Put the sugar bowl back down and put the top on the bowl.  Fold the bread in half, further hiding the sugary topping.
6. Walk out of the kitchen eating the piece of bread.  Your sister will ask you questions.  "What are you eating?"  A piece of bread.  "Just a piece of bread?"  Yes.   "Gross!"

I was never caught at the white bread sugar ploy, but quite frankly I did not do it but a couple of times because white bread with sugar is... well, it's actually sort of gross.  However, one does what one needs to do to maintain ones sugar fix.

I did eventually grow out of my sugar mainlining phase, but retained a mild sweet tooth such that I prefer having sugar in my tea but I hardly eat any sugary snacks at all.  I can't say all that sugar as a child did me any good and perhaps it did me some harm but as far as the 'tooth dissolving' predictions...  They were so wrong.  I never had even a single cavity.