It began innocently enough. I caught my co-worker nibbling on them as her mid-afternoon snack and her repetitive wrapper rustles were sign enough to me that her petit sweets were something to try. A few days later while passing the candy section in my neighborhood Fran-Prix, I saw them and thought, why not? That’s when Lutti got me good.

From my first purchase, I was hooked. I soon needed a Lutti hit on a regular basis. I told myself I’d go slow with each bag purchased, but every time I slapped a 2 Euro coin down on the store’s counter and ran out the door, something came over me. Just opening the packaged, the intoxicating manufactured strawberry smell wooed me close. The sugar grains rubbed rough against my tongue as the sour strawberry invaded my taste buds. It was always, I’ll only have a few…just to hold me over on the walk home. Which turned into a few more and then just one more and then…zut, alors – my whole dinner. My Lutti love became a crazed fascination. It’s probably for the best that we were forced to part ways when I moved home this summer. But we’ll always have France, my dear Lutti I had thought.

It turns out, we’d also have cavities. On my trip to the dentist last month, I was greeted with bad news in the form of a disappointing report card. My first cavities since I seriously can’t remember when and I have nothing to blame but my former flame, Lutti and my nonexistent self-control. Yet as I sat in the dentist chair this morning, both sides of my mouth numb, eyes squeezed shut and hands clutching chair arms with a prayer that the doc would soon be done, I was brought back to the good times — late nights of paper writing and afternoons of getting lost and city strolling. You may be gone now and my teeth may be happy about it, but my Lutti dear, we’ll always have Paris.