Death by (lack of) Chocolate

I received some of the most awful news imag­in­able the other day by way of the Doctor. She told me that I needed to cut caf­feine out of my diet. Okay no big deal. I had already begun doing that because I real­ized cof­fee raised my blood pres­sure. I don’t drink much pop so that’s no prob­lem. I proudly stated, “I’m already doing that.” Then she said the words that rang in my ears for days after, “And no choco­late.”

Have you ever seen in the movies when some­one deliv­ers dev­as­tat­ing news in a slow motion fash­ion? That’s how I heard it. I could actu­ally see the words “No choco­late” float from her mouth. I was dumb­founded. She could have eas­ily said, “And no air.” Reason is I heard Chris Brown’s and Jordan Sparks’ “No air” play­ing in my head when she said it.

“But, how do you expect me
To live alone with just me?
’Cause my world revolves around you
And it’s so hard for me to breathe”

I’m sure you think I’m jok­ing but, I’m not. My love affair with choco­late is my longest rela­tion­ship. I have prob­a­bly had a large hand in keep­ing Hershey and Godiva in busi­ness. I have prob­a­bly eaten my weight in choco­late. I may even have traces of choco­late latched to my DNA. All right I’m exag­ger­at­ing but, you know what I mean. Some peo­ple have vices like alco­hol or drugs. I have choco­late. Chocolate has seen me through bad breakups, my monthly sor­row, over­ac­tive kids, and intol­er­a­ble bosses. What am I going to do now?

If I have a beau what will he gift me with? Licorice? Chocolate goes with every­thing. It is the best acces­sory to every out­fit. The com­pli­ment to every meal. I’m sure even veg­e­tar­i­ans eat choco­late shaped ani­mals. It’s irre­sistible.

This woman (aka the doc­tor) prob­a­bly went to med­ical school solely for the pur­pose of hand­ing down this blow to me. She prob­a­bly hates choco­late and it’s all part of an elab­o­rate scheme to rid the world of its gooey good­ness. All right I’m exag­ger­at­ing again. But, the point is here I sit: Chocolate free. I have been cut off of my sup­ply. No more choco­late cake, choco­late chip cook­ies, choco­late ice cream, truf­fles, or bars. I will have to sit teary-​eyed and watch oth­ers enjoy my deca­dent favorite.

Naturally I’ll be at some din­ner party and the only alter­na­tive to the rich choco­late dessert that is served will be jello. Not even a good kind like cherry but, some abstract pis­ta­chio mint thing cov­ered in whipped cream to add insult to the injury. I will have to sit and watch every­one com­ment on how the host­ess out did her­self this time and this is prob­a­bly the best choco­late dessert ever made. If I even think of sneak­ing a bite some health con­scious indi­vid­ual will prob­a­bly say: “Didn’t the doc­tor say you couldn’t eat choco­late?” Only to leave me pre­tend­ing that I had for­got­ten as I cut my eyes at them when they aren’t look­ing.

But, because I do value my health I will obey. It will be hard. I may cry a lot. Maybe I’ll find a sup­port group of some kind to help with the relapses. I don’t like it but I will do my best to live by it. Now if I could only come up with an alter­na­tive. Any sug­ges­tions?

Photo Credit: