Warning, evildoers! Gluttony is the gateway to sins of the flesh!

Whoa! Did St. Thomas say Gluttony is the Mary Jane of Capital Vices? Hey, Tommy, talk to the real scamps and sinners! Bring on the [discontinued] Ding Dongs and let’s disco down!

I dream of a decadent world where I can eat Oreo Cookies for breakfast and chocolate cake for dinner. Hershey’s Kisses and M&M’s would carpet my house, and puddles of fudge from a chocolate waterfall would be everywhere. You think I’m kidding? I’m the girl who would take myself trick or treating in the middle of the year when I was a kid. Like in July, in the middle of the day, friends. People actually gave me candy.

In medieval days, the word on the street was if you scarfed down one bowl of porridge too many, you’ve opened the door for the other sins to follow, despite the fact that Gluttony is the annoying outcast of the sins’ gang—it bogarts everything, makes demands and just ends up wasting stuff. Also it’s obese and unhealthy. Gluttony itself is probably eating a supersized triple-everything meal right now, while kickin’ it with a Dexter marathon, a boatload of porn and a carton of smokes. Prudence, on the other hand, is a skinny bag o’ bones, comparatively. It sits quietly with a sensible, brown bag lunch and reads a book. Prudence is boring; Gluttony is a massive 70’s San Francisco bath house right smack in the middle of The Castro on a Saturday night.

Glutton: A person with an inordinate desire to consume more than needed, who has or appears to have a voracious appetite.

We’re talking about a prick bastard type of guy here, taking stuff away from the needy and keeping it all for himself. Seen Hoarders lately? This shit is is real. And here’s a fact that probably won’t be a shock: they say people who overdo everything were weaned too early from mumsy as children, and ended up with good ol’ fashioned mommy issues. Gluttons for pain, slaves to love, always looking for Mr. Goodbar at the bottom of every cookie jar and used condom.

If this is you, there’s a special place for you in hell (you selfish, misbegotten fool) where you’ll be force-fed the likes of rats, toads and snakes. This, according to Dante and Virgil, who meandered around The Underworld in Dante’s Divine Comedy. I hope you like being rained on by feces, too—it’s a real shit storm down under, which resembles a disgusting garbage heap. And thus the symbolic punishment; as sinners “pigged out” in life, now they must live in a pile of swinish grossness as their eternal punishment. It always rains in the third circle of hell, where the gluttonous dwell. Not spring water, either, but filthy polluted stinky rain and hail. Everything reeks. Maybe you shouldn’t have had that eighth cocktail last night…

“It is written: the more a thing is perfect, the more it feels of pleasure and pain

.” ~ Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

Quite a price to pay for an extra drinky-poo or indulging in those humungous Las Vegas buffets (and in the hookers). You pile on the scrambled eggs and salty bacon strips, play a whole lot of Keno and gulp down a pot of coffee. Then you waste three and a half hours at the slot machines. If you win, you’ve actually just been paid to overindulge. And according to St Thomas, you’re one step closer to meeting the Antichrist, The Beast himself, the man with wealth and taste—and it’s worth it.

I will admit, there is something to be said for overdoing it. I don’t know about you, but I like what I like and I always want more. Have you ever doubled the sugar in a recipe? Mmmmm… Double down or go home! I mean, why the hell not?

But there’s more to overgorging oneself than just eating everything in sight like Augustus Gloop or someone with the unfortunate Prader Willi Syndrome. The glutton enjoys pleasure. Everything is louder, more abundant, fuller, fatter, closer, heavier, sexier. This kind of guy can shag all night and go out at 7:00 a.m. for some Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles (you know who you are). Food and pleasure are the end-all be-all of life, even all together—a mash up, if you will, a trilogy of food, fun and debauchery.

The most delicious way to create a grand theater of excess could be with certain foods I like to call “after-disiacs.” You know what I’m talking about; anything chocolate, goopy or syrupy, all that crap with too many fatty calories and not much else. Sugar in any form, anywhere. Let it get between the toes, like sand. (Food and sex are messy, get used to it.) Take a milk bath afterward. Anything you can eat, and bathe in. Fresh fruit. grapes, anything you can dangle. Ice cream with whipped cream with a caramel drizzle. I swear, I should’ve been a pastry chef. Their one and only job is to create sugary, sweet delectable confections. Seriously, could red velvet cake be any more seductive?

I asked my friends what the best after-disiacs are.

Cheese. And Sprite- Luke
Champagne- Kelly
The morning-after pill- Michelle (kidding, she says)
Creme brulee. And more of her- Mario
Anything from room service- Doug

Me, it’s all about chicken and waffles, fresh and hot first thing in the morning, or last thing at night… Some say too much is never enough. And exactly how much is too much? I don’t want to know, actually… it takes all the fun out of sloppy seconds. And thirds.

I say, go all the way. Get down and get dirty.

When you’ve had enough, stay hungry. Shag all night, sleep ’til noon. Love like a maniac, hunt like a warrior, trust like a virgin, run with the devil, dance like a fly girl, sing like a skylark, scream like a banshee, and make long, sweet love under a strawberry moon in a butterscotch sky.

This is the third piece in a badass series of sins. Read Envy & the Blonde Behind the Bar and Lust & the Lovesick.

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“Pigs” Photo Source: Uploaded by user via Scherrie on Pinterest, “Kitchen” Photo Source: idontwantsex.tumblr.com via VivTheQueen on Pinterest