Maquinna's Poop du Jour

Chocolate Bites Back

If you've followed this blog at all, you know that I have a serious predilection for serious chocolate. I don't have a lot of difficulty walking past a Hershey bar. That ain't chocolate. But really good, dark, high-cocoa content (somewhere around 70% is optimum for me)...that's another matter.

One of our faculty returned from Denmark today with several boxes of such chocolate. Bad news when you're faced with the prospect of a wedding dress in six weeks. For hours I resisted the call. Finally I broke down...carefully peeling back the tissue and beautiful paper and gazing at the beautifully crafted little jewels in the tray. Some were wrapped like cones with tiny marzipan flowers on one end like a bouquet. Others sat elegantly in understated foils with a thin ribbon around their middles. The aroma was intoxicating.

I selected one. One, I told myself. Just one. You've been good all week.

I brought it back to my desk and let it sit in front of me for a second, letting it fill the air around me with a heady chocolate perfume. Even through its foil wrapper, it was unmistakable. Carefully I pulled back the little ribbon, pear green (how very modern), and slowly peeled away the pale gold foil without tearing it. The chocolate was a dark silky rectangle, regally embossed. I bit into its end...then spat it all over my keyboard.

The chocolate was filled with some foul liqueur, harsh and potent and completely at odds, in my opinion, with the texture of the chocolate. I hate liqueur chocolates. My keyboard is now sticky with it, and the chocolate, all of it, is in the garbage. I feel like the promise of really good sex was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of an elderly, talkative, chain-smoking neighbour.

The chocolate smell hangs in the office, mocking me.

posted by Maquinna @ 1:20 p.m.