age or location?

i feel like the older i get, the hungrier i get...but, logically speaking, this shouldn't be the case. i mean, i'm done with growth spurts as far as i know (oh, please, please, please...give me three more inches. it's not asking much!) and it's not like i've been helicoptered into a subzero climate and need to layer myself with excess padding to ensure that my innards don't freeze.

so, what's going on?

i never used to be a snacker.

i was never one for mass amounts of sweets, though i do enjoy salty foods. (does that count as having a salt-tooth?...and if it does, that doesn't sound very pleasant.)

...i even grew up in a household where cookies and other such delightful sugar vehicles hid in every kitchen cabinet, every bowl and plate...everywhere you turned...and let's not get into the motherload that was planted in the basement closet. (cookies, crackers, sweets...a wall of them...as far as the eye could see! it was like we were awaiting the sucrose apocalypse.)

so, yes. never a snacker...until now.

as said earlier, i wondered if it had to do with me getting older.

...but i rule this out. there's no need for me to have extra calories in my diet...and i'm not pregnant. that joke isn't funny anymore.

in fact, it was never funny...

so, i'm starting to think that it's my place of work.

upon further reflection, i realize that my snacking started around the fall of 2008...which is when i started working at my current office.

it's 98% female, we all PMS around the same time, we all complain about that 4pm lull, and our cleaning woman always insists on purchasing boxes upon boxes of sweets for us.

people bake in this company...and they share their baking with their co-workers.

...and usually the baked goods are the type you can't say no to...

the type of baked goods that lure you in like lemmings off a cliff...

a sugary cliff of awe-inspiring carb-satisfaction.

any time of day, if there're cookies in the kitchen, you will hear one person or another popping the cookie jar lid open.

clink! clink! (it's a glass cookie jar)...

nom! nom!...

and then silence...

that guilty silence...

so silent you think that they were swallowed up by the universe the minute they finished chewing.

the kind of silence that tells you the person who's being silent is feeling bad about themselves and is considering going to the gym or not eating for the next week.

...or maybe i'm projecting.