Adam tends to do things in excess. This may come as no surprise…and it applies across pretty much every facet of his life.

We ran out of honey? He buys this tub.

According to Adam – contrary to what the FDA says – honey doesn’t ever go bad.

He needed a button for his shirt? He orders this tub…of 1,000.

It’s never been used once.

We needed a simple fan for the bathroom? He went with the multi-timer option for 10 minute, 30 minute or 60 minutes of freshening.

My daughter needed to bring something blue to school? This is what he picked out for her.

He needed an air conditioner for his tiny little office? Rather than go with the standard compact window air conditioner we’ve all seen, he felt this one was necessary. Not to mention how awesome it looks in the space.

We needed to replace the printer in my home office? You know, just to print the occasional document. This is what he ordered.

And the list goes on and on. And as you can imagine, it applies to food as well.

In fact, if we ever have any kind of dessert or sweets around in the house, he really can’t control himself. So while some of us may like to have the occasional cookie here or there, he just doesn’t trust himself not to to eat the entire box…in one sitting. Luckily, he developed his own personal coping mechanism: the soap treatment. What this means is that rather than just throwing out said dessert in the garbage, he doesn’t trust himself enough to not go back into that garbage and just eat it anyway. So instead, he douses it completely in soap first before depositing it in the garbage to ensure he won’t go back in.

Yes, this is what normal life is like with Adam.

So he’s a big fan of pecan pie. One day in 2003 – back before I moved to DC, I had spent the summer there with him after college and it was my very last night there before returning to start work in NYC – we went out to a fancy farewell dinner. When he saw pecan pie on the menu, he knew he needed to order it for dessert. But when the waitress came, instead of simply ordering the pecan pie, he went into this whole long ridiculous story about how much he absolutely LOVES pecan pie. And how back home – there’s this place called Costco (have you heard of it??) and they sell the best, largest pecan pie. And sometimes, his mom will get it for him…and it’s so amazing. I was just staring at him the entire story like he was crazy, and I’m pretty sure the waitress thought he had some special needs. So when she came back, she not only brought an extra huge slice of pecan pie, but also an extra one for him to take him, since she sees how special it is to him. Adam of course ate both pieces before we left, despite my warnings that no one should eat that much pecan pie in one sitting.

And then immediately threw up all pecan pie when we got home.

But I think my favorite story of overdoing it has to do with Red Velvet Cupcakes…despite being a little mortified to share it publicly. Even more than pecan pie, Adam loves these cupcakes. Like really REALLY loves them. And it was always his dream to be able to eat as many red velvet cupcakes as he could possibly want, all in one marathon-eating session. So about three years ago, he told me THIS is what he wanted for his birthday. Not a gift. Not a dinner out at a fancy restaurant. Just as many red velvet cupcakes as he could possibly eat. (And a gallon of milk.) So that’s exactly what we did. I filled an entire three-tier cupcake platter with red velvet cupcakes, and got one giant red velvet cupcakes (pretty much the size of an actual cake) to put the candle in.

He ate it all.

A few hours later, we were sleeping and Adam woke me up in a panic. He started not to feel well. (Couldn’t possibly understand why that may be the case.) And when he went to the bathroom…blood was coming out. He was FREAKED out and told me we needed to go to the emergency room right away.

Fortunately I was able to calm him down. Turns out…it wasn’t blood he saw in the toilet. It was simply red dye from the red velvet cupcakes. And that’s the last day he ate one. #shmadum