First it was my sweet junior high school nephew with the heart of gold who mentioned that he was boycotting chocolate. Matt was sending an economic message to manufacturers who use West African chocolate in their candy bars that he was not buying into their exploitation of children as slave labor. When Matt encouraged his family to give up chocolate I had the best intentions to do just that…until I moved to the next conversation and conveniently forgot my promise.
Now, it’s Kimberly from Petroville who is working the talk about ditching the cute Halloween chocolate bars. However, Kimberly gets to the heart of the matter and reminds her readers that the Halloween candy’s main mission is to increase the size of your butt. Is it SO pathetic that I would commit to abstain from chocolate out of fear of an enormous ass over the horror of little children being forced into slavery? Self-centeredness has taken on a new meaning. I’m drowning in my own juices.
Honestly, I am going to make a conscious effort to not to buy big bags of Hershey bars and Kit-Kats, but I never do that anyway. Mostly, I’m afraid that my reputation is on the line because the whole NO CAR experiment and the fact that I moved all the furniture out of my house, and now this no chocolate tangent. If I give up chocolate on top of those other slaps at society, I’m nervous that you will relegate me to the world of the good and self-righteous.
Find it in your heart, not to assign me to that category because it would be a major mis-categorization. Of all people I am not good and I stake my claim on skewering the self-righteous. Please do not allow your mind to place me in either of those boxes, for I do not belong there. Really. Think it over, read the column below and enjoy this photo that found on www.davezilla.com that barely relates to this post.
Remember my sister-in-law, the real journalist? Here is a column she wrote about her son giving up chocolate:
A few Lents ago, I gave up chocolate for six excruciating weeks. On Easter morning, my kids awoke me with a chocolate Easter bunny as big as my foot. I sat up in bed and devoured the whole thing right then and there--despite the discomfort of nature calling.
Pathetic, no? That’s how much I adore chocolate.
Thus, when I skimmed a horrifying article about the origins of chocolate almost a year ago, I chose not to dwell on it.
My friends Mark and Liz, after reading the same newspaper story, chose otherwise. They educated themselves on the topic, wrote legislators and vowed to eat only “innocent” chocolate.
At a dinner party, I self-consciously apologized to Liz as I nibbled a truffle. “Oh, please,” she forgave without piety. “There are a zillion causes I should take on that I don’t. This just happens to be the one that I did.”
A zillion causes, indeed. We’d go hungry and naked if we thought too much about how our products got from there to here.
So on I went, willfully ignoring that ugly information filed in a far corner of my brain until New Year’s Eve, when my son accompanied me to buy snacks for our small fete.
“Let’s get some Paul Newman chocolate chip cookies; Liz and Mark and their kids don’t eat most brands of chocolate,” I casually remarked.
Suddenly, I was stuck explaining an issue that I didn’t totally understand myself. By the time I’d finished, I felt foolish about all that “guilty” chocolate inhabiting our pantry. And my pure-hearted ten year old felt appalled.
“I’m never eating that kind of chocolate again!” Matt decided on the spot. Shamed by his instantaneous indignation, I promised to join him in his boycott.
