Chocolate Disdain, Explained

*A special thanks to Ami Nguyen for coming through like kindling and igniting my hatred for the cocoa bean and his partner in crime - the peanut.

Forestero. Criollo. Trinitario. All three have made the trip across the sea, into the factory, onto the melting pan, through the shape machine, into the wrapper, out the door, onto the truck, placed in a bin, picked off the shelf, brought home to a kid, opened by grimy fingers, and devoured like a praying mantis eating her mate. Bad example? Possibly. But equally unappealing.

Those three foreign cacao trees produce enough cocoa beans to plant a Hershey-sized kiss on every man, woman, and child on earth. But for me, it would be one of those awkward kisses where you don't kiss back and then it just smears and no one is happy. You see, I hate chocolate. I can handle the taste from time to time, but it's one candy that comes with just enough baggage to force me to avoid it on non-holiday days. It gets stuck on the roof of your mouth, it coats your teeth to give you that big British smile, it's rich, it melts and inevitably stains the shirt you just got for your birthday, and it's EVERYWHERE YOU TURN!

I'm always offered chocolate and I always decline. And everytime I do I know what's coming.

"Are you sure? It's reeallly good. I got it from Switzerland!"

"No, I'm good. Thanks for the offer though."

"Did you hear what I said? It's swiss chocolate! It's a Toblerone!"

"I'm sorry, I don't really like chocolate."

Long pause. Mouth opens. Storm clouds roll in. Thunder rages. Eyes turn red.

"You..(gasping for breath)... don't..(blank stare)...like...(eyes moistening)... CHOCOLATE!?!? (screaming)".

I don't mind that redundant conversation. Actually, I find it amusing. We've come a long way as a society. Neil and Buzz landed on the moon. Alexander found a way to talk to people that weren't sitting right in front of him. Jack learned how to make your problems temporarily dissappear. (Daniels for any mormons reading my blog). But here we are, in the 21st century, in a globalized world, and not one single person on this planet understands that I'd just as soon get a papercut on my eye than eat a milk chocolate bar after dinner.

The same goes for the peanut, or any nut for that matter.

I hate nuts so bad I'm not even going to risk the sharp rise in blood pressure trying to explain it.

There is one exception though. In fact, this exception is so frickin' mind-boggling that I've devoted an entire blog to figuring it out. Hell, I've devoted my whole life to figuring this out. No one believes me. They think I'm lying. They think I'm so far out of my bird that they'd never dare cage me. Do you want to know what it is? Well, I'll tell you anyway.

Four words: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Sweet baby Jesus those are delicious. And addicting. I can't buy bags anymore. I'll eat right through 'em. I mean, I'm a sharer and I once told someone I was fresh out of cups because I couldn't bear to part with the remaining ten. It's a problem. It's an embarrassement. It's a contradiction.

The only rational explanantion is beyond my vocabulary, but I'm sure it has something to do with science. Math, too. You know how if you were to write out the equation of two multiplied by one half, and show your work, you would draw a line through the two "2's" because they cancel out? Yeah, its something like that, only instead of numbers, we're talking proteins and transfats.

You can write it down and say it loud. Thomas Stuyvesant doesn't like chocolate, and he doesn't like peanuts, but he likes chocolate and peanuts.

They say taste buds are shaped like cubes. I guess mine are Rubik's cubes.