Instant gratification. It can be so…well, gratifying. Sometimes I get a thought in my head and grab hold of it like a terrier hanging on to a rope. I want the thing, whatever it is, in that instance.

I am of two minds, though. The adult, thoughtful brain recognizes that instant gratification isn’t always all it is cracked up to be. It can be a curse. It can be bliss for a second then hell for ever after. Many food items are like this for me. I have learned. I don’t trifle with my digestive system and its proclivities.

Yet sometimes, for some things, the brain just wants. It mulls over every angle. It keeps the mind spinning with it. “Come on, human. You want this. You know you do. You want it now.”

I hate it when it’s like this, especially when it’s something I most decidedly cannot have right now, like a trip to New Zealand or a good solid ankle massage (they’ve been killing me for weeks now, it seems). In those moments I have to think of something else. Use all my powers of mental control to think about something else. Anything else. Like an ankle massage instead of New Zealand. Or New Zealand instead of an ankle massage.

Somehow I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to go.