Of all the holidays I celebrate, Easter seems to have the worst leftovers.

The day after Easter I typically wake up with the uniquely painful headache brought on by handfuls of jelly beans and the severed heads of chocolate bunny rabbits. To add insult to injury, the refrigerator is dominated by a rainbow of brightly-colored hard-boiled eggs. I love eggs, but not when they're stained. Biting into an egg salad sandwich sporting a deep bluish-green hue just doesn't seem all that smart.

In the aftermath of Thanksgiving you're guaranteed to have some splendid turkey sandwiches and good reason to eat cranberry sauce straight from the can (finally!). St. Patrick's Day means corned beef and cabbage, a meal that I took an inexplicable liking to while still in the womb. Even the sugar highs and lows of Halloween are superior to those of Easter -- I always tend to feel sick after eating those big chocolate Easter eggs with the sugary white filling inside. And yet every year I succeed in stuffing at least one of those into my mouth and somehow ending up with remains of the `` yolk'' stuck in my hair.

And then you have those yellow marshmallow chicks that turn rock hard as soon as their plastic wrapping is pierced. You need to shove them down your throat four at a time if you ever hope to eat them while they're still soft.

I used to love those gooey things, whether yellow or pink, in the shape of chicks or rabbits or anteaters. As a result of declaring my love for them long ago I am graced every year -- compliments of the Easter bunny -- with at least 20 boxes bursting with marshmallowy cuteness. Sadly I've failed to keep up my habit of binging on them every spring, so my apartment is now littered with leftover rock-hard animals that leave a dusting of bright yellow or pink crumbs wherever they roam. But I don't let them go to waste: Some I use as doorjambs, others as paperweights, and the really tough ones I use to scour my pots and pans. Now you know why my pot roast tastes so sweet. To make matters worse I keep finding that fake grass from my Easter basket everywhere -- in my shoes, my pockets, my ears. I think I ate a few strands of it at lunch today with my red-and-purple egg salad sandwich.

I don't mean to be so negative about Easter leftovers. After all, Easter isn't supposed to be about chocolate bunnies and jelly beans and oddly-colored eggs. It's supposed to be about a massive dinner of ham and green beans and potatoes. Or maybe it's about turkey or leg of lamb or a marshmallow-flavored roast -- I'll send you my recipe.

All you kids out there, don't make the same mistake I do every year. Get your fill of that delicious Easter dinner but limit your jelly bean intake to less than 30 handfuls per day. Any more than that and you're doomed to suffer a killer headache that lasts until Memorial Day.

BILL ZUCK, a Foxboro native now studying in San Diego, hopes that the Easter bunny brings cash instead of jelly beans next year. You can reach him at wcz78(at)yahoo.com.