The St. Valentine's Day Eclair Massacre

Valentine's Day.  Not really the holiday a teenager wants to spend with his mother. With classes, the gym, and baseball, I don't see a whole lot of my youngest kid, Avery, so when I do see him--in the car--I decided to treat him to a delicious eclair. 

As far as I can recall, I've never bought eclairs before--and after today, I may never purchase those cream-filled dessert again. 

We're driving along a two lane street. and the teen reaches into the back and grabs the plastic container with three eclairs, asking if he can have one. I tell him sure, go ahead. 

"Grab me one too," I tell him. 

He tears through the label that stands between us and a sugar rush and fumbles with the whole thing, narrowly evading three eclairs on the weather proof mats of the front seat.

"For the love of Cupid! Be careful!" I tell him. 

"You do it," he says once we reach a red light. 

Mama to the rescue. This kid is nineteen, we're in the car, and I'm still feeding him. Moms gotta mom, amiright?' So I open the package, grab one and hand the rest back to him. The light turns green. I take a bite and the eclair cracks in half. Well, more than in half. I'm no mathematician, but about two thirds of the pastry has fallen off.

I've got the one-third in my mouth, clenched between my teeth, with no way to chew it. If I spit it out, the eclair is going to turn into a missile and land on the dashboard. 

"Oh God," I say as panic starts to set in. "Avweeee!!!!!" 

"What?" he asks. He looks at me and realizes disaster is unfolding. "What happened? What did you do?"

I don't have a free hand. I have one on the wheel and one holding the rest of the eclair while the part that broke off is lodged in my mouth. It's too big to chew. And there's chocolate and cream oozing from it. Along with saliva. 

A lot of saliva. Like in the span of about thirty seconds I've become a rabid raccoon fighting for dessert in a Dumpster. I can feel it pooling in my mouth and collecting on the corner of my lips. 

I can't actually reply to him because my mouth is full, so I squeak out a, "Heeeewp."

"Help?" he questions, clearly a lot less concerned than I am. "How am I supposed to help you?"

I can feel a big glob of chocolate--and saliva--drip down my shirt. Did I mention there was a lot of saliva? Why am I suddenly the Hoover Dam overflowing? And what are the chances I drown on my spit?

Could there possibly be a more humiliating way to die? I can see the headlines: Middle aged woman drowns self attempting to eat eclair. I don't want to even think about the comment section for this news story. 

Thankfully we reach another red light and I attempt to shove the eclair into my mouth, but it's too big. And dare I say it? Hard. Yes, I have a big, hard, cream-filled eclair jutting from my parted, wet lips. 

And the thought of how ridiculous the whole situation is makes me laugh really, really hard because the last thing I want to say to my teenage son on Valentine's Day is the inappropriate thoughts going through my head. 

"What is wrong with you?" he asks before taking a bite of his dessert. 

There are tears streaming down my face. And saliva. Chocolate. Cream. Bits of the flaky eclair. I'm like OnlyFans, but for fat kids that have a pastry filled fantasy. If someone had recorded this whole ordeal, I may have been able to pay for a semester of college. 

By some miracle, I was able to start chewing, probably due to the amount of saliva softening the eclair until it was, well, flaccid. I manage to maneuver it around and eventually swallow. Seriously, by description alone, this was a very sexy Valentine's Day for me. 

"Remind me that eclairs do not make good road food," I tell my kid as I grab a fast food napkin from the center console. 

"Ya think?"