One word to sum up my summer – failure. Allow me to explain.

I recently returned from two weeks spent at home in So Cal. This is where I hoped to freshen my face after finals – sleep off those sleepless nights, straighten up from the caffeine spinoffs and, finally, release those tensed muscles that have been too long hunched over a computer screen. Instead, I found myself horribly unprepared for the height of swim suit season, which is not a time to unclench ANY muscles.

On my return to Davis, I wasn’t refreshed, but I was definitely resolved – I would give up bread.

Now, there is only one problem that immediately presents itself. I work in a bakery and, in my personal experience, this is somewhat akin to a smoker who works in a Phillip Morris packing plant.

The fact is – I love bread. I think what I love most about bread, other than the fact that it a suitable snack morning, noon and night, may be its diversity.

It comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be sweet, salty, soft, crunchy, flaky, spongy or grainy, with nuts, without nuts. Besides, from a worldly view point, it is common to all cultures. Bread and booze will follow you anywhere you want to go in the world – like MasterCard or Visa.

There is a funny thing that happens to dieters – they begin to fixate on food with newfound fascination. Before, food was just a frequently occurring bad habit like biting your nails, but now it’s a highly focused hobby.

It’s more than that, though. You start to see food as if it’s taunting you, teasing you, in the most unlikely places – like the shower, for example. Personally, I never expected my shower to be a space of dieter’s detriment, if you will. I simply assumed that one look at myself in the full-length mirror before stepping behind that curtain would be all the motivation I needed for the next month. I was wrong.

Innocently, I was perusing the various soaps and shampoos in my shower, and I found the following within reach of my prune-soaked fingers.

1) Start with apricot oatmeal face scrub.

2) Followed by a rubdown with a bar of carrot-scented soap.

3) Apply pumpkin pie shampoo, and rinse well.

4) Leave in mint conditioner for two to three minutes for best results.

5) Don’t forget smooth summer legs with the help of raspberry mist silk shaving creme.

6) Pat dry, and top with coconut body butter.

I must have stepped out of the shower smelling something like a holiday dessert gone horribly wrong – covered in more creams and pseudo-sugar substances than I take in my morning coffee.