Like millions of gifting challenged Americans this holiday season, I bought someone a retail gift card. I was visiting one of our representatives from the national chains the other day, standing in line with my card. When it was my turn I shrugged off the slightly out of breath, saccharin holiday greeting from the store clerk, and handed over my gift card. She asked me how much I wanted to put on the card and I told her, “Fifteen please.”

“Very well sir, fifty it is.”

“Sorry, I must have misspoken; I meant to say ‘fifteen’.”

You’d have thought I just kicked tinny Tim’s crutch out from underneath him. The idea that I was so cheap I’d dilly around with a fifteen dollar gift card was so distasteful to the clerk she practically snarled at me. For a split second I felt compelled to whip out the receipt for my daughter’s presents, but good sense won out.

It was a receipt from a competitor.

I was reaching for the sweet nectar of life (another shot of caffeine please), when something gave me pause. It was my stomach. My stomach was telling me that it wanted something to eat – to ease the strain of another caffeine infusion. So I went into my desk drawer, to root through my personal cache wholesome snacks. Ah, but sitting right there next to my crackers was the initial source of my trepidation: two stray quarters. Fifty cents won’t buy you a lot these days, but it will buy you something more tempting to your palate than crackers. It took all of three seconds to weigh my choices.

I saw a Baby Ruth bar in the snack machine the other day.

Without conscious thought I found myself walking to the break room. Just like that, I was on my way to milk chocolate, creamy nougat, rich caramel, crunchy peanut, finger licking bliss.

And then it happened again.

Sitting there next to the snack machine, perched confidently on the break room table, sat a collection of Dunkin’ Doughnut’s finest. I looked at my palm, at the two quarters resting there and thought about what they represented. I looked back at the table, at the doughnuts looking so glazed – so fresh – so undeniably tasty. What do I choose? How can this be happening to me? What would Richard Simmons do?

And then it hit me. Where’s the fun in being an American pig if I can’t have both? After all, being an American pig means not having to choose, right? So I had my doughnut and ate my Baby Ruth too. My guilty pleasures safely packed away, and my place in the world once again secure, I was ready to go forth and produce (I am at work, after all).