We’ve all had one of “those” days. Those overly emotional, frustrating, busy, tired days.

Days when you Just. Need. Some. Chocolate.

Not a lot of chocolate.

Just a taste.

Recently, I identified the following subtle signs that it was a Chocolate Day:

~I noticed tears unexpectedly trailing down my cheeks when “Killing Me Softly” by Roberta Flack came on my car radio on the way to work. (That’s just so sad…He’s strumming her pain with his fingers! *sniff* He’s singing her life with his words! *sob*)

~When speaking to my husband, I found myself referring to the kids as “Your Children”—as in, “No dear, the laundry ISN’T done, because Your Children are still waiting patiently for the Dirty Clothes Fairy to come and use her magic sparkle dust to transport their undergarments from the bedroom floor to the hamper.” Or, um, something like that.

~I had trouble closing the crowded kitchen drawer that holds all of the bulky utensils (Who REALLY uses a potato masher, anyway?), so I dumped the contents out onto the kitchen counter…and suddenly realized that I was ENTIRELY SURROUNDED BY CLUTTER…which initiated a cleaning frenzy that culminated in two sulking teenagers dragging four garbage bags down to the curb and retreating to the solace of their bedrooms.

~My husband volunteered to “run out and fetch” a bottle of chardonnay for me, and then escaped dashed out of the house before I had a chance to answer.

So on this particular Chocolate Day, I remembered that I had a bag of mint Hershey’s Kisses in the pantry that I had been saving to use in Christmas cookies. This was a TOTAL upgrade from my usual desperate maneuvers, which have included polishing off an ancient, but open, bag of chocolate chips, scavenging a [barely chocolate, but it will do in an emergency] miniature Tootsie Roll from the cookie jar (a.k.a. the “Island of Misfit Halloween Candy”) or making a sad cup of sugar-free hot chocolate. This was REAL CANDY.

But the bag was still sealed.

I think we all know what can happen when there is an open bag of Hershey’s Kisses in the house on a Chocolate Day—I like to think of it as a coiled rattlesnake, ready to strike at any time—but I felt fairly confident that I could resist its siren call after I had that tiny taste I craved.

The trick was to open it just a wee bit, to preserve the illusion that it was still actually closed. I grabbed the corner of the bag and started to ease it open…but it wasn’t budging. I grabbed the other corner, and tried to pull it open with even, gentle pressure. I managed to slightly distort the plastic, but I could NOT penetrate the sanctity of the wrapper.

Trying to keep my panic in check, I held the bag in the middle, and slowly started to pull the two sides apart. I could sense that it was starting to give, when all of a sudden the bag just completely ripped open from top to bottom, utterly destroyed by my eagerness.

It was a disaster. Not only was the bag OPEN, but it was OBLITERATED, leaving the poor Kisses vulnerable to attack. Suddenly I understood. It’s a conspiracy. The Hershey company knows that its product will be devoured if exposed, and has clearly invested years of research in developing this insidious break-away bag.

But I am stronger than the bag, and refused to be manipulated by a chocolate (mmmmm…) company. I could CHOOSE to have just one Kiss, right?

Right?

 

(right?)

 

Wrong.

It didn’t matter how many times I changed locations; everywhere I went, I left behind the following evidence:

My husband, returning home with a bottle of Kendall Jackson chardonnay, saw the demolished bag, the piles of wrappers scattered randomly around the living room, and the newly sedate look on my face. Without a word, he opened the bottle, poured a glass for me, and retreated up to the bedroom to watch football.

Alone now, I put my feet up, took a sip of wine, and had just one more Kiss, to top myself off.

Aaah, life was good. I love Chocolate Days.

I just don’t understand why everyone makes such a big fuss about it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 7:58 pm and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.