But I Only Had Four

Possibly I am being paranoid. Possibly I am being over-sensitive. Possibly I have developed a heightened siege mentality that is even now interpreting everybody’s cheery salutations as ballistae and cannon set upon bringing about my imminent downfall.

But this is chocolate we’re talking about here and it don’t get more personal than that.

My addiction to the cocoa bean is legendary. Not just around the workplace but worldwide too. I have in my possession a personal letter of apology from the Kraft MD for their callous take-over of Cadbury’s and a promise that they will not (upon pain of death) fudge the recipe for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.

Actually I faked that letter but that’s not the point.

A big bag of chocolates were brought into the workplace on Monday for all us office types to share. I did, I admit, feel a slight modicum of guilt as I threw one of these chocs down my throat for I had actually paid Cadbury World a visit the previous week with my wife and kids and I had brought nothing back for my work colleagues at all. Not a bean. Literally.

In my defence I had limited funds, don’t give a jot for my work colleagues and tend to put my loved one’s first in matters of chocolate.

So sod ‘em.

But plainly there is a work colleague here whose grip on their chocolate is weaker than mine. The bag of chocolate was deemed fair game.

By the lunchtime of the first day though it had disappeared. It had been locked away to be “preserved for those work colleagues who were not on duty today but would be in attendance tomorrow”.

The unspoken accusation being that people currently on duty would, if given continued carte blanche, wallop the entire supply of chocolate down their masticating gizzards without a second thought for those colleagues who couldn’t be arsed to come into work today and grab themselves a piece with their own fair hands.

Well, tough. I say, sod ‘em again.

However, being of known chocoholic persuasion it was hard not to take the withdrawal of chocolate privileges as a personal attack. Infamy, infamy, they’ve got in for me, etc.

Now, I know for a fact that in the particular bag of chocolates that had been brought into the office there must easily be approximately 40 pieces of chocolate. I know this for a fact because my wife and I made our way through an identical bag at home last week (over the course of several days I hasten to add) and kept a rough tally on how many were in there.

I only had 4 chocolates out of the bag in the office. 4, goddammit. 4 out of 40+.

There are 7 of us in the office which means, if we were being mathematically fair, we were each entitled to 5.71 pieces of chocolate. 5.71. That’s practically 6 each and I doubt if even Professor Brian Cox would quibble with my maths.

I only had 4.

I had less than someone else in the office. But I feel like I am the one being persecuted.

Why? Why do they persecute me?

I hope they all find themselves on the road to Damascus soon.

I am more sinned against that sinning.

Honest. Now I feel so low I could do with a Boost.

Carry On Cadbury’s

I’m probably jumping onto the bandwagon a bit late here but Kraft + Cadbury’s = bad news.

I’m not talking about the risk to investor’s money.

I’m not talking about the probable future closure of factories (given Kraft’s past track record).

I’m not even talking about the inevitable jobs losses despite Kraft’s “you’re all safe, you are, honest” protestations.

No. I’m talking about the important thing. The chocolate. ‘Cos for all Kraft merely want to grab Cadbury’s bubble gum marketing network they will inevitably mess with the chocolate recipe. They’ll cut corners. Go for cheaper nastier ingredients. Like greedy street corner pushers they’ll start cutting it with baking powder and sawdust and horse tranquilizers. They’ll bring out an American version that’ll taste slick and plasticky like a Hershey’s bar. They will eventually commit the ultimate sin and call it candy.

Can you imagine that?

Cadbury’s Candy?

I’m dry heaving even as I type.

To mess with our chocolate would be sacrilege of the highest (lowest?) order. But the desecration is inevitable. Like Vikings raiding a Saxon village Kraft will tear down our temples, smear faeces on our altar cloths and make us worship the goat headed god of candy pseudo-chocolate.

I’m stockpiling now. Dairy Milk, Caramel, Fruit & Nut, Wispa, Boost. My loft is becoming a chocolate warehouse. Bursting at the seams with all that is good and wholesome about Cadbury’s before it’s too late. Before (to paraphrase Merry from Lord Of The Rings) all that is good and brown about our chocolate is gone from the world. And then there won’t be a Shire, Pippin.

And there won’t be no Curly-wurly neither.

You see, my biggest fear is that my personal chocolate stash will become a shrine. A DNA database for chocolate to remind us of what good chocolate once tasted like. A few dusty bars held in suspended animation that nobody dare consume or brought out of cryogenic storage solely to be minutely sampled by rogue scientists to try and rediscover and replicate the old magical recipe.

And then we’ll be into the realm of genetically modified chocolate. A world where interplanetary companies like the Tyrell Corporation control and tailor our chocolate eating experience in line with intergalactic legislation. I tell you now the motto “more chocolate than chocolate” will be our undoing!

Oh good people of earth clasp your Fruit & Nut to your bosoms! Defend your Cream Eggs to your last breath! The heathens are even now on our doorstep and pissing into our hot chocolate!

Or am I just over-reacting?