Eva Clark / Castleton Spartan

Graeme Pike poses with his guilty pleasure, girly scented candles.

What is something everyone has, but may not want to admit?  Something you enjoy doing, watching or listening to that may not be considered all that “cool”?

It’s a guilty pleasure, and the Castleton community is riddled with them – some more intriguing than others.

When students, coaches, Public Safety officers and graduate assistants were asked for their guilty pleasures, the answers varied greatly.  They ranged from hanging out in their favorite red onesie (Matthew Levins) to enjoying HGTV marathons with close friends (Taylor Wilkerson, Eric Horsfield and Nohea King).

It was soon clear that Castleton University is home to some interesting fixes.

Take women’s softball coach Eric Ramey. On his nights off from scouting opposing teams and creating game plans, Ramey likes to relax on the couch and turn on some WWE wrestling.  Problem is, he said his wife doesn’t approve of him watching when the kids were around.

“I tried to support her efforts to discourage them from being interested in it, but after she went to sleep, I would flip the channel to watch the end of the show.  I even let the boys sneak back into the room to watch!  Not my best work as a parent.”

The most common responses from Castleton students related to – of course – food.  Chocolate, peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches (Brock Labelle), french fries (Connor Kelly), coffee ice cream (Walter O’Dell), Oreos (J’Leen Diaz), Swedish Fish (Luke Salerno), popcorn (Andre Remus) and pudding were all cited.  

Senior Zach Devoid’s was perhaps a little more grotesque for some.

“I eat the fat on steak, it has the most flavor!” Devoid said.

Ryan Mulder said his guilty pleasure is baking muffins.

But there were plenty of responses unrelated to food as well. Eric Horsfield’s response to the question-of-the-day was, “I really love Katy Perry’s music.”  Bart Moran often enjoys wearing his favorite pair of cowboy boots. Graeme Pike “really likes girly scented candles.”  Kayla Zsido loves to watch the movie “Anne of Green Gables” and Taylor Vile likes to treat himself to a glass of Pinot Grigio.

Not surprisingly, there were a few guilty pleasures relating to the shower.  Jakob Trautwein admitted that he talks to himself in the shower about football pretty regularly.  Jamie Trayer enjoys 45-minute-long showers when she is at her parent’s house, and Nick Kovalchik can’t pass up “a nice warm bath.”

Public Safety officer Floyd Morey had a more intricate one, resulting in a bit of trouble on the home front.

 “I wake up in the morning and turn all of the TV’s on around the house so that I don’t miss anything as I go through my morning routine. I like ESPN and especially the Dan Patrick Show.  I also turn the volume way up … my wife will yell at me because she will be home at the end of the day and turn the TV on to find the volume cranked.”

Have you thought of your guilty pleasure yet?