When Chocolate Attacks

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. . .
Music for this mornings entry: Karn Evil 9 (1st Impression Pt. 2) from EL&P

3:00 am yesterday morning a week of paperwork and doctors appointments, some bizarre weather and perhaps a passing asteroid somehow induced chocolate hysteria. Perhaps not, but the only other explanation I have involves a 20 year old steel 4 drawer file cabinet that weighs 200 pounds. (I’ll get to that later)

Back to the chocolate. I wanted some, it started with a fun size package of M&M’s and rapidly escalated. Next was a considerable piece of a half pound Hershey bar. Still not enough, hot chocolate was next. Nestles hot chocolate mix plus two heaping tablespoons of un-sweetened cocoa powder, two teaspoons of sugar, water, & milk in the largest cup I could find. 3 minutes in the microwave and a quick stir and it was chocolate heaven.

Looking around the blog world yesterday I see that I am not the only one contemplating cravings. It is reassuring that others are at least as bad as I am.

The 200 pound monster:
My roommate calls me around six the other night to pick her up from her sister-in-laws. She says she had a file cabinet to bring home, the boys will load it in the car.

The only place to park when I get there is blocking the driveway to the fried chicken place next door. One minor problem, there is a water-main leak and everything is solid ice. Next problem, the file cabinet is too big to fit across the back seat of the car. “Maybe if we roll the back windows down” they say, never mind that it is 10 degrees outside and the back windows are frozen shut.

The windows have to go down, the corners of the cabinet are touching the glass on one side and the door will not close on the other. This is not going well. They windex the back windows and they finally roll down. The passenger side back door still will not close, the cabinet is too long.

I’m cold, stressed, tired and the smell from the chicken place is making me sick to my stomach, I want to go home. I told the guys to get me a piece of rope, tie it to the door frame and give me the other end. “What are you going to do with it” one of them asked. “Just do it” I snapped back at him. I tied the door frame to the drivers side headrest.

So here we go, back windows down, heater on high, dome light will not go out since the back door is open, lights on the dash telling me the door is open and a annoying warning thing digging to remind me of all that is wrong with this picture. Great, I’m in one of the worst neighborhoods in town after dark calling all kinds of attention to this circus act. Crosstown we go trying to figure out how to explain this if we get stopped by the police.

We pull in the driveway and realize “how do we get this thing out of the car and into the house?” We untie the door and decide you push I’ll pull, didn’t work. You pull, I’ll push, didn’t work. We’ll both pull, didn’t work. Let’s both push, out the car door it goes, one end on the neighbors front lawn and the other end resting on the backseat of the car.

We stand the thing up, close up the car, tip it back and try to cary it to the front door. No chance, too heavy. Now the damn thing is in the middle of the neighbors front lawn looking like the monolith from 2001 space odyssey.

One last idea, a luggage cart. We get the thing onto the cart and wrestle it across the lawn to the sidewalk around a patch of ice and to the front stairs. We flop it over against the steps and push it the rest of the way into the house.

We did it. Nobody hurt, nothing broken, no walls damaged, the car is not damaged and we made it home. With that my roommate announces, “we need a pick up truck.”