A Fistful of Melted Chocolate

Today, while driving, I jeopardized my safety and that of others to retrieve a canister of the most delectable wafer cookies on the planet from my backseat using an ice scraper. However irresponsible, the operation was a success that culminated with me licking the last few crumbs of joy off my fingers. I was then taken back to one of my first memories, featuring my Grandpa Bill, a ridiculous pink dress, and a fistful of melted chocolate.

It's Easter Sunday, 1979. I'm standing on the front seat of Big G's (Grandpa Bill's) Buick with my hand on his shoulder. I'm donning a dreadful, frou-frou dress made entirely of pink bunting, paired with a horribly thick and uncomfortable pair of white tights. Like most weekends, I'm about to take the 15 mile journey from Rockland, Idaho to my Grandparents' house in American Falls. Once arrived, I will be crowned Queen of Idanha Avenue and will serve as sovereign over the cable television, be lavished with sweets, and showered with limitless praise. We're poised for departure but, as usual, we're waiting on my grandmother. She's on the porch, blowing hundreds of goodbye kisses in her very chic, robin-egg blue polyester Easter suit. I'm feeling particularly impatient because I am fairly certain that there is an Easter basket the size of a wheelbarrow waiting for me 15 miles away. Big G gives me his famous impish grin and I reach over to admonish my grandmother with a honk of the horn. But the honk merely elicits a blithely wave from the porch. I have a mind to go out after her, but I'm hobbled by my tights that were made for a child whose crotch is located one inch above their knees (or for a child with much shorter legs, Mom!). So, I plunk myself down on the seat, press my chin into my chest and fold my arms. In his standard, Pavlovian reaction Big G starts rooting around behind him for something to appease me. What comes back over the seat (Insert hymns of angels) is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen: A giant chocolate bunny the size of my head. (more hymns) I stare at it for about thirty seconds before Big G says, "Go ahead Scrapper, giv'r what for!" (Haaaalelujah) But now, I'm perplexed. Do I eat the bunny, thus ending his existence here on Earth? Or do I hold him, and name him, and love him, and pet him like every bunny deserves? I choose the latter and within moments my ethereal chocolate bunny is all over my hands and the horrid dress. Big G tries to help by taking away the remainder of the carcass, which enables me to wipe my hands on the white tights. Outrageousness ensues on the porch when they see what I've done to myself. I barely notice, however, because by this time I have licked my fingers and realize there is nothing I want more in the world on Easter Sunday, 1979, than to EAT THAT CHOCOLATE. I do the only thing I can do, I run. I run as fast as my shrimpish tights will let me, licking my fingers desperately as I wobble. Inevitably, I am caught and my father potato sacks me into the house. Others recall that even whilst dangling over my father's shoulder, I continued licking the chocolate off my fingers. And it was delightful.

It is no less worth it (and no more graceful) thirty years later, when I'm foraging around in the cupboard for abandoned chocolate chips; or making inaudible sounds when someone gives me something new and chocolaty to try; or extracting a canister of wafer cookies from the backseat of my car with an ice scraper. Chocolate is just one of those few pleasures in life that, even if it's just for a moment, makes everything better. As I held my wafer cookie in my hand I could hear Big G's voice, "Go ahead Scrapper, giv'r what for!" And I did, and it was delightful.