The Double-Edged Reward

I am all about rewarding myself. For a job well done, for getting through a stressful day, for finishing a difficult homework assignment. The problem with rewards, much as I love them, is their tendency to double as punishments. In disguise. They're very clever, actually.

As a recent reward for making it through a long and arduous week, I vegged and did absolutely nothing productive during a blissful kid-free night when Craig (saint that he is) took all of the girls to the Children's Museum. Sadly, I was also unwittingly doling out a punishment for myself of having to dedicate an entire Saturday night to preparing notes and writing a paper about The Scarlet Letter.

Another common reward in my repertoire is partaking of delicious food. Fun-sized candy bars, Cherry Limeades, dessert cereal, popcorn...you get the idea. I figure that I do a good enough job in my day-to-day tasks of school drop-off and pick-up and Not Killing the Children that I deserve this reward pretty frequently. Unfortunately, the hidden punishment for those indulgences comes in the form of my old nemeses, Double-Chin and its cousin, Too Tight Pants.

Then there are the times that I reward myself for getting through a typical morning of chaos by sitting at the computer for a few minutes with a delicious bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats to read blogs, check email, upload pictures, and other such important-but-not-vital endeavors. The punishment here varies: sometimes it's as simple as a messy playroom. Other times it involves an entire rearrangement of a child's bedroom closet. (The trouble is, you never know what will happen.)

Everything being said, I have not decided to give up my rewards; bad as their accompanying punishments may be, I am still really very fond of them. So, even when my common sense urges against it, I will continue to eat, veg, fartknock, and otherwise indulge myself when I have reached my limit of stress, patience, or intellectual activity.

It's just too bad I will always have to pay the price for doing so.

p.s. the spelling suggestions for fartknock include: fart knock, door knocker, Vietcong, and fatiguing. Just thought you might want to know.