The wee small hours

 I'm not proud of this disclosure, but with some context it may be excusable.

I had a cold. Although I'd been avoiding the afflicted C for 10 days in order to minimise viral transmission (separate towels, no kissing or other face-to-face encounters etc etc) the leap from one primate host to another had been accomplished.

I've had a few colds over my many decades of life and know how it is. If not at bedtime, then later in the middle of the night, I would be awake with this empty, acidy feeling in my stomach. The only solution is to ingest a snack - to take away the bad and allow me to sleep and hopefully feel better in the morning.

1:35am and I was wide awake. Trying to get back to sleep was useless and I was very aware of an unopened packet of chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen cupboard. We generally don't have biscuits in the house - to avoid temptation - but when B drops in for a cuppa he invariably asks for a "nice" biscuit so I had popped a pack into the cupboard the last time called in M&S for something. 

I slipped out of bed as quietly as possible so as not to wake C and went down to the kitchen. A warm drink was called for, so I put the kettle on and opened the biscuits, thinking "I'll just have one while I'm waiting for the kettle". It was rather nice. I actually couldn't remember when I last ate a biscuit. It was gone in 3 bites and the kettle hadn't boiled so I bit into another...

I decided to watch some TV while drinking my half-a-cup of decaf so took the mug and a biscuit into the living room - just to eat with my coffee you understand. The biscuit didn't last long. Perhaps I could have just one more? Before I realised what was happening my legs had taken me into the kitchen and I was back in front of my coffee with another two biscuits in my hand.

It occurred to me that C wasn't yet aware of this packet of biscuits in the cupboard. We have an unwritten pack to share any chocolate or other treats that either of us acquires. In fact, when I was at a low ebb once and helped myself to a (tea!)spoon-full of drinking chocolate solids, only to be caught - by a telltale crumb on my face - I was practically accused of adultery! That m&m's advert ("NOW I get the biting!") isn't so far from the truth! To be fair I should now have left the remaining 3 biscuits for C. 

But I'd already broken the pact by consuming the 5th biscuit! And though I can scarcely still claim a 'medicinal snack'... well wouldn't it be a victimless - and invisible - crime to finish the pack?

Ending 1: whole packet gone and evidence buried deep in waste bin

Ending 2: packet restored to back of cupboard and used to sustain life through 3 subsequent long dark nights