… I thought this was a well known fact, but apparently my sweet Mama made it up. Today I celebrated my one year anniversary at work, but technically, I worked with the organization from 2003 to 2005 and then volunteered in between then and when I came back last July, so really I’ve been around for three years professionally and five years overall. Anyway … appropriately, to celebrate my anniversary, the staff surprised me with a cake in the shape of … you guessed it – a big, honkin’ cupcake! Can I get an AMEN!?! 
After devouring a slice, I realized there were some lonely crumbs sitting on the doily that were just screaming to be eaten, and since my Mama always told me “crumbs don’t have calories,” I figured the only right thing to do would be to eat them. After all, waste not, want not.
I mentioned this crumb theory to one of the office interns and she totally rained on my parade, telling me how crazy I was (which, I am) for saying such a thing. But isn’t it kind of like Santa or the Tooth Fairy or just the simple power of suggestion? If I think the crumbs don’t have calories than they must not – right?
Or maybe I want to believe it so badly because it’s something my mother taught me. My wonderful mother passed away earlier this year, and I miss her madly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and at least come close to shedding a tear or lots of them. But I can hold onto all of the wonderful things we shared, like her silly theories, and all the times that we spent eating cupcakes together.
Perhaps she’s the reason why I love cupcakes so much. I worked for a PR agency in the city for a year and during that time I brought home cupcakes, at her request of course, to taste test from the likes of Buttercup, Magnolia, Junior’s, Zaro’s, Cupcake Cafe and Crumbs. It was a tough job, but we were up for the task. Really, we felt a responsibility of sorts to mankind, okay, so that might be stretching it, but we at least felt a responsibility to our family and friends to be connoisseurs of cupcakes and have the ability to make appropriate recommendations for a variety of occasions.
We ate carrot cake cupcakes, Twinkie cupcakes, black & white cupcakes, lemon cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes, cookie dough cupcakes, devil food cupcakes … you name it, we ate it. And every time we would dig into those delicious and even more delicious bites of heaven, she would always say “the crumbs don’t count because they don’t have calories.”
Of course I know it’s not true. I’m not quite as dumb as I look, but I choose to believe that crumbs don’t have calories because the theory works for me. Okay, so maybe it doesn’t work for me to the extent that when I eat crumbs upon crumbs upon crumbs I don’t take in hundreds of calories and gain weight, particularly in the hip and thigh region. But I choose to believe it and like to believe it and share the theory with the world, because my Mama told me so.
Cupcakes & Cat Food 