“It's breakfast time!”
I love the festive season for many reasons. One of which is that I don't get to prepare all the meals myself, unlike when I'm back at my house in school. I rubbed my palms together, greatly expecting the breakfast of oats and apples as was on the food menu my older sister had pasted on the door to the kitchen.
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“It's been quite some time since I've had apples,” I said picking one up to divide it into sections.
“Well since it's the holidays, don't get too spoilt” she responded causing everyone at the table to explode in laughter. I looked around for the milk sachets but saw instead that one tin of sweetened milk had been provided for each individual. I couldn't remember when I last had sweetened tin milk either. With glee, I pierced three sides of the can open and began pouring the milk out into my bowl of oats.
A swift movement to my left caught my eye and when I turned, I saw one of my cousins who had come visiting from the University of Port Harcourt, with the sugar bowl. She had about three cubes in the plastic spoon she had used to scoop them up. I made a silent comment in my head about how my mom used to sound it as an alarm that excess sugar wasn't good for the body but when I turned to her, she was just eating silently.
It was when I saw Tamara, who was my cousin's name, take up another cube of sugar after dissolving the first three in her plate that I spoke up.
“Tamara that's enough.” There was a firmness to my tone that made everyone at the table turn to me.
“What is it, Treasure?” her eyes were raised directly at me.
“How can you use four cubes of sugar for a bowl of cereal?”
My mother chuckled somewhere in between, turning the table's attention to herself.
“You think I'm teasing her when I call her sugar girl? It's literal. When I complained to her parents the last time, they said she has a sweet tooth.”
Tamara had lifted her lips into a pout now turning the oatmeal this way and that.
“I just added that extra sugar for sweetening effect. You know how bland oats can be”.
I didn't know there was a sneer on my face until my younger brother tapped me with the famous slang “Let the girl breathe!” Rousing another round of laughter from the table.
“What's with the drama this morning?” My older sister who had been bustling around, trying to get her children clean and settled enough to join us asked. When I relayed the occurrence to her, she gasped in shock.
“Sweetheart you can't eat sugar like that, especially regularly. Mummy you're the number one advocate for healthy living, how come you're letting this one slide?” She asked the exact question that was tugging on my mind.
My mother dismissed the question with a shrug, causing me to shake my head this way and that……….
Tamara and I had to stay back to pack all of the dishes for washing when everyone was done. I still had questions for her in mind, but I allowed the sleeping dog lie. I was so used to witnessing my family members pay attention to their health that the sugar incidence still bothered me even after breakfast.
“Can I ask you something?” she had that pout on her lips again. As far as I remembered, I was about 2 years older than she was so I put on that big sister cloak and told her to ask away.
“I grew up loving sweet things. My mom used to talk about it a lot until one of her friends told her I had a sweet tooth” She formed quotation marks in the air to stress her last statement. “But over time I think it's worse than that. Do you think someone can be addicted to sugar?”
I hadn't exactly heard of sugar-related addictions before, so I asked her to wait a second while I consulted AI.
I read it out to her and almost laughed at the ashen look on her face when I was done.
“What am I going to do now? I almost cannot live without taking sugary stuff”
“You have to cut it down seriously. You can't endanger yourself in the name of addiction.” I saw the expression on her face and decided to add naughtily “I'm not trying to sweet talk you though…” She caught the pun.
“Ahhh I see what you did there” We both threw our heads back, relieving ourselves of the tension that hung in the air a few minutes ago.