STEINBACH, MB
Residents are already calling him the ‘Amy Winehouse of Waffles,’ and after an entire weekend where he consumed more than three hundred waffles and fifteen gallons of white sauce, local man Arnold Warkentin has been checked into the Betty Ford Center for treatment of his waffle addiction.
“It started with just the waffle sweats,” said Warkentin, who begins treatment tomorrow. “It always happens after the fifth or six waffle.”
Warkentin says he hasn’t always had this problem, but claims his breakfast choices as a child contributed to his condition.
“Eggos were the gateway for me,” he says. “But, when I was in college I took a trip to Europe. It was in Brussels that I really got hooked on waffles. You can get a few grams of waffle there for just one euro. It ain’t a safe place for people with waffle addictions. Anyway, after a few years even Belgians weren’t good enough and I quickly moved onto Mennonite waffles with white sauce.”
Warkentin says he’s struggled with this addiction for years, but finally decided enough was enough after pressure from his family. One particularly embarrassing moment for Warkentin was a video of him that was posted on Facebook. It showed him at a family gathering with a noticeable line of white sauce below his nose.
“He had already drained all the family’s income buying waffles, but that video was the final straw,” says his daughter Ashley. “I knew then that this was beyond just recreational waffle use. He needed help.”
(Photo credit: by Liz Henry/CC)
