Tag: Chocolate

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Leftovers

“You ate the damn bunny?”

With these sweet, affirming words my wife greeted me this past Easter morning. How was I to know that particular, tasty little chocolate bunny was earmarked for one of our kids? There wasn’t a label on it. And for the record, it was totally worth it.

My wife was not pleased. She seldom is on days when I forage like a roving bear through our fridge, pantry, and shelves. This describes my behavior on most days.

I developed this bad habit as a child. My parents were late morning sleepers. My sister and I were early morning risers. So my parents began to leave out breakfast cereal, two bowls, and two spoons. Their message was clear: kids help themselves and leave mom and dad alone for another hour of sleep.

Soon tiring of mere breakfast self-service, my sister and I began to forage further afield. If we put a chair on top of the counter we could reach the jar with the chocolate chips. If we stuck a hairpin in the lock on the pantry we could access nuts, syrup, coconut, and other delicacies. Sweet dreams mom and dad, we can take it from here.

It turns out the bad habit of foraging is rather widely shared by others. In college, my brother taped a sign to their refrigerator aimed at his roommates: “Opening and closing the fridge door will not magically make food appear”. Another friend describes his own foraging habit by simply stating, “Chuck: I can work a fridge”. I have seen this. He speaks the truth. He is a one man swarm of locust on the leftovers.

And leftovers are the foraging focal point of my marital tension. After a good meal my wife and I fill the Tupperware with leftovers and put them in the fridge. In my wife’s mind, this will be her lunch for tomorrow. In my mind, this will be my snack in about 30 minutes. As noted previously, if there is no label on it, it’s fair game. She does not agree. We are taking this issue to arbitration.

This morning I “accidentally” ate my wife’s leftover lunch that she was taking to work. She was understandably upset. So I made it up to her by slipping a leftover chocolate Easter bunny into her purse on her way out the door. I confess that before doing so, I first nibbled a bit off the butt.

 

[If you know others who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

{Image Credit: Card Karma on Flickr}

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Thanksgiving – 27/11/2017

As I blacked out from cardiac arrest I thought: I am going to die in Africa, naked, at the hands of a French dwarf. How disappointing for my parents.

 Days earlier I had felt an exquisite pain like someone twisting a knife in my back. I was 20 at the time, sitting in a restaurant in rural Cameroon. I stumbled from the table and dropped to my knees in the parking lot, bawling like a calf. My colleagues took me to a local clinic. I was soon transported to a private clinic in the capital city.

 I was met there by a doctor of exceptionally short stature. With an outrageous French accent and extreme platform shoes, he was a cross between Jacques Clouseau and Gene Simmons from KISS. The diagnosis was renal colic–kidney stones. I had been working outside in the tropics for 9 months, sweating hard every day. At night I drank mostly beer. Eventually my desiccated kidneys had enough.

 I was rehydrated in the clinic over several days. Before being discharged, the doctor wanted to do a full body x-ray with an injected tracing fluid. This would confirm if all the calcium was out of my system. In preparation I had to suffer an enema, witnessed by the entire clinic staff at my bedside. Further humiliation followed as I lay naked on the cold x-ray table. No secrets that day. Or dignity.

 They injected the iodine trace. Who knew I was allergic to iodine?  My heart stopped beating.

 Other people see a light at the end of the tunnel. Not me. I saw African faces bending low, weaving in and out above me like a kelp forest in the water. There was a tiny white shark circling the kelp forest. It was speaking French and wearing platform shoes. I also vaguely remember my tongue being clipped to the side of my mouth, injections, chest compressions.

When the ordeal ended I was weakly helped off the table and into a wheelchair. Unexpectedly, a nurse brought me a chocolate bar. I remember clearly it was a Twix. I had not seen chocolate in 6 months. Her gift unleashed a flood of uncontrollable tears. I sat there naked, savouring the chocolate, sobbing and laughing and overwhelmed with inexpressible gratitude for the precious gift of this life. May I feel that way every day.