The proper treat

The book has spent a long time on what the daily isn't. This chapter is about what a treat is, when it's working, because you're going to have them and they should be good.

Chosen ahead. A proper treat is decided before the hour, not at it. In the morning, or the day before, you know that tonight has one, and why. That sounds like it would spoil it, and it doesn't. It gives you the expecting back, honestly, as looking forward to a thing you've chosen rather than a lean towards a cue.

For a reason you'd say aloud. Not "I've earned it", which is the licence. A reason with a fact in it. The report went in. It's Friday and the week was long. It's someone's birthday. I fancy one, and I haven't had one since Sunday. That last one is allowed. Liking a thing is a reason. What isn't allowed is a reason you'd be embarrassed to say to a friend, because that's the earning in a coat.

Different from other days. The treat has to mark, which means most days can't have it. Two or three times a week is the most I'd suggest for anything, and once a week is better for the treat, because the marker gets clearer the rarer it is. If that sounds like too few, remember chapter 16. Three a month are better than thirty, each.

Noticed. This is the one that turns a routine back into a pleasure. Have the treat and nothing else. The glass without the phone. The bar sitting down, not at the counter. The episode chosen, with the next one not started. Quoidbach's chocolate was savoured because it had been a week, and savouring is a thing you can do on purpose. If the treat isn't worth ten minutes of attention, it isn't a treat, it's a filling, and you can let it go.

Sized for the day. A treat is a small thing that ends a day that had something in it. If the day was empty, the treat can't fix that and shouldn't be asked to, and the better move is to put something into tomorrow rather than more into tonight. If the day was good, the treat rounds it off. If the day was hard, the treat recognises it, and it can, because it wasn't there yesterday.

That's a proper treat, and it's the thing this book is for. Not fewer pleasures. Pleasures that are pleasures, because they aren't the hour.