What are your guilty pleasures? Are they food, books, movies, songs? Is it occasionally sleeping late or ducking out of work a few minutes early? What exactly is a guilty pleasure? With a few reservations, I googled “guilty pleasures.” Luckily, I wasn’t transported to a litany of kinky websites or the dark web. To paraphrase the exact definition, a guilty pleasure is something you enjoy that only causes a slight feeling of guilt. The idea for this article came from my son, Christian and I think it’s fitting to include the guilty pleasures we discussed.

For me, coffee is a guilty pleasure. After a lifetime of drinking copious amounts of coffee, I quit completely for about eight years. I remember drinking coffee at breakfast when I was in first grade. We also sometimes had coffee in the evenings during my childhood. I drank decaf while I was pregnant and breastfeeding, but other than that, it was pretty much Folgers and Maxwell House caffeinated pots of coffee.

One Easter holiday, Christian wasn’t feeling well, and my other boys were off with their dad playing in hockey tournaments. I ran out of coffee and none of my neighbors were in town. I couldn’t leave the house to buy more and I thought my head was going to explode. That’s when I realized I needed to stop the caffeine overload.  My first attempt to cut back was buying a 20-ounce coffee, not making coffee at home, and substituting green tea for the missing cups. Next, I started making decaf at home and limiting myself to a small cup of regular coffee. Finally, I switched to decaf green tea and no coffee. After about a week I didn’t miss coffee at all.

Fast forward eight years and I was having out-of-town guests, so I bought a Keurig for them to have coffee. I had to try it out, so I bought some regular and decaf pods. Like a junky, I was back on the caffeine, and I felt guilty using disposable pods. By switching to a reusable pod, making a single cup was a little less convenient, but still easy. I was able to cut back to a morning cup and the occasional early evening cup of decaf. I realize I don’t really have to have that cup of coffee, but I treat myself to a cup of Vermont Maple Bourbon coffee every morning. Coffee is now just a guilty pleasure and not an obsession.

I refuse to call dark chocolate a guilty pleasure because it does have health benefits. Christian and I used to share dark chocolate from around the world. One bar would last a week or two because it was so rich and filling.  It was something we did together, and I never felt guilty even though we often joked about whether it was a guilty pleasure or not. Christian’s take was that buying chocolate bars from companies that used ethically sourced ingredients was good but indulging in such rich chocolate had to be a guilty pleasure. All I really know is every time I have a piece of dark chocolate; I remember sharing it with him and that makes me happy.

What are your musical guilty pleasures? For some people, it might be the big schmaltzy love songs, show tunes, the big band sound, heavy metal, or something a little bit country. My guilty pleasures are songs that make me happy but aren’t what you’d call musical masterpieces. The lyrics may seem trite, but I’ll listen and smile. “Don’t Worry be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin or “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry are two examples of songs I consider to be guilty pleasures. My sons have their own ideas about what constitutes good music. Most of the time we agree but they’ve never been shy about disagreeing with me. On hockey road trips, many of my CDs were banished to the glove compartment. If their dad was driving, they learned to take their iPods and headphones. Bob Seger, Huey Lewis & the News, and even Springsteen became guilty (not guilty) pleasures for my iPod and later my iPhone.

I like a good romantic comedy. Occasionally my sons will indulge me, but most often these movies are relegated to the guilty pleasure shelf of DVDs or low down on the streaming App wish list. The Wedding Date will always be a guilty pleasure. I also like Disney channel kids’ movies, the Halloweentown Series and Nick or Disney series shows like “Alex Mack,’ “Clarissa Explains it All,” and “That’s So Raven.” They were silly and fun, and I watched them with my boys. Christian and I spent most of last year re-watching as many of those movies and shows as we could find. We also watched the Lifetime Christmas movies to see which one of us would be the first to cry, uncle. Christian always lost because I have a soft spot for romance.

Good Burger was Christian’s favorite guilty pleasure movie. He was a big fan of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. The last time we watched it, Christian admitted the scenes at the mental asylum bothered him because of how they portrayed people with mental illness. That was how he was… always worried about marginalizing or making fun of anyone or their challenges.

Romance novels are my guilty reading pleasure. I read so much for work and don’t always have time to read books I’m not reviewing or works by authors I’m not writing about. Occasionally, I will review a romance for the magazine, so I can attach a purpose to my guilty pleasure.

Last, but certainly not least, let’s talk about food. Most of my guilty pleasures don’t exist for me anymore since I switched to a more plant-based diet. I don’t eat Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese anymore or meatloaf. I’ve made the transition to vegan butter, vegan egg substitute, vegan mayonnaise, and vegan cheese, but I still eat fish and seafood. They are healthy, but are they now guilty pleasures? I’m more inclined to think of desserts as guilty pleasures… pie, cakes, cookies. Mashed potatoes with gravy and dressing at Thanksgiving are still guilty pleasures for me because I will probably use some real butter and maybe some chicken or turkey broth to make them instead of making separate dishes for me and my family during the holidays. I never really considered how many guilty pleasures I’d be giving up by adopting a healthier eating plan, but I guess you can’t have it all.

What are your favorite guilty pleasures? Did I miss any?