Simple Pleasures

Simple pleasures. Nothing elaborate. Family, birth, and all that other meaningful crap pales in comparison to the raw neurochemical bliss you can achieve by truly mundane delights such as these:

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You've been stuck working late. On your feet all day. Even your bathroom breaks have been rushed. You've been wearing your crappy runners laced too tightly. You get home and finally free your feet. Your 20-for-a-dollar WalMart socks peel off like damp Bandaids leaving your skin deeply ridged. It itches like crazy, almost burns, and you finally get to scratch the top of your abused feet. Oh, yeah. Better than sex! Ok, not better than sex. Scratching your feet while having sex would be better than sex, but it still feels pretty darn good.

You've been fighting off the flu for days. You thought you were over it but, when you wake up, your nose is completely plugged. Not a wisp of air getting through when you try to blow. You have your morning shower. You dry off and try blowing your nose again. And it works. Completely. Your entire head feels hollow. Sort of the olfactory version of that "fresh from the dentist" feeling. Got to love that.

You pop open a new box of Tic-Tacs and toss a couple in your mouth. For that first second, before the mint really kicks in, you get that mysterious yet fleeting creamy vanilla flavour. I wish the whole Tic-Tac tasted like that.

Waking up thinking it's almost morning only to discover you've still got four or five more hours to go is nice. It's a distant second, though. The alarm goes off. It's way too early! You just can't handle the day. Not yet. Wait! It's Saturday! You forgot to turn off the alarm last night. Oh, yeah. That three seconds of joy before you fall back to sleep is fantastic. But only if it's legitimate. You can't get that level of satisfaction trying to pull a fast one on your brain and purposefully leaving the alarm on.