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Highlands Today

Chocolate resistance is futile

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By Norm Cukras | Highlands Today

Published: August 8, 2009

There is a revolution brewing in this country. It's being organized by a formidable group of individuals who believe in the proposition that all meals should begin with dessert, not with the traditional appetizer.

Then within this group of "dessert firsters" is a sub-sect that feels strongly that dessert be defined (or is that divined) as chocolate. "Eating it is satisfying," chocolate lovers contend. Of course there are other chapters that feel almost as strongly that dessert should only be pie and then there are the ones who feel equally as strong as the pie people that dessert means cake. Still, it's the Chocolaters who have the greatest membership. For them it is not a matter of; "Do you like chocolate?" It's matter of; "What kind of chocolate do you like?"

When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. It is more than a sweet. It's suggestive; it's almost an aphrodisiac. It borders on being addictive. And it's erotic; can't you imagine Cleopatra emerging from a bath of chocolate to greet Mark Anthony? Even though it is said that chocolate was pretty much confined to South America until the 1500s, its existence was known for about 1,000 years before the reign of the Egyptian queen. So who knows for sure whether or not she bathed in it?

Anyway, because of the perceived influence of the concoction, there was talk at the turn of the century of establishing a clandestine government agency to curtail the importation of cacao beans. It was to be called the ARCA - Agency to Repel Chocolate in America. Congress had already pork-barreled funding for the agency in a road building program and yellow jackets with bold brown ARCA letters on the back were placed on order. It was then that a group of congressional wives who were ardent members of the dessert first rebellion got wind of the bill and threatened to assist their husbands in living a celibate life for as long as they held their congressional seat if the bill went through. It didn't.

So enjoy yourself. Be aware that you are not alone in wanting to satisfy your basic desires.

Not tomorrow, now

Besides, it is downright criminal to expect you to wait until tomorrow before doing certain things. Things like chocolate. Do you have a Forever Yours bar tucked away in a shoebox in the back of your closet? Rescue it before the chocolate begins to show that telltale sign of age: that kind of powdery white coating.

Tomorrow is really no more special than today is. So bring out the truffles you got for Christmas, burn those bees wax candles, use the nice sheets, wear your fancy lingerie.

Stop saving everything for some special occasion. Today is special.

Another Thing For The 'Antiques Roadshow'

It seems to me that I have somehow let down the frequent followers of this column. Over the years I have addressed the possible use of discarded items such as: tennis balls and bowling balls; DVDs and floppy disks, even things like books by the Clintons. But this time I am stumped. The last shipment of prerecorded VHS (Video Home System) cassettes was in December of last year and I cannot come up with a baker's dozen of alternate uses for them; two maybe, but not 12 or 13.

The two uses that I could suggest would be: pull the tape out, paint it yellow and donate it to the police for use as police tape at crime scenes. There are, depending on cassette capacity, between 812 feet to 1,210 feet of tape in each plastic case so it can go a long way. Then after the tape is removed the containers could be painted white and sold to the Eskimos for igloo-building material.

Of course cassettes could be taken over to the Blue Crab restaurant where if an eater wanted to take advantage of their "Wacky Wednesday" $2.99 breakfast special they would have to "adopt" one of the unwanted tapes and promise to give it a good home.

Overheard

Overheard at the checkout counter: U.S. 27 is the spinal cord of Highlands County.

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