The Sad History of my Chocolate Bar

Oh readers, I am going to recount to you a tale so full of woe that I know you will be weeping at your monitors as you ponder my great misfortune.

On Friday evening, I was given a Chocolate Bar as a belated birthday present. It was a Ghiradelli Mint Chocolate Bar, pristine, wrapped, beautiful. I delighted in this Chocolate Bar! I treasured it! I saved it for the time when I ran out of the Chocolate Squares I was also given that night. I placed it on a high shelf in the pantry, and waited.

Sunday night I considered having my Chocolate Bar, but Darwin was not ready to indulge at that late hour. So I decided to hold off until we could share it, because I love my husband just that much.

Monday afternoon I came down the stairs to find that my girls had pulled up a chair, unlatched the pantry (again) and pulled out the mexican hot chocolate to eat. Mexican hot chocolate, for those of you unfamiliar, comes in tablets made up of eight wedges. You heat the milk and pour it in the blender, then add two wedges for each cup of milk. It's good. Well, I found the mexican chocolate on a plate on the table, Babs washing her hands, and Noogs scaling a bookshelf to get a toy. I scolded them, set them up to play, and then, inspired by the mexican chocolate, decided to have a bite of my very own Chocolate Bar. And it was gone! Gone! Gone!

Noogs fervently denied moving it at all, and Babs was no help at all. There were no traces of mint chocolate about them, no wrapper anywhere, no smell of mint around. For a brief moment I wondered if Darwin had taken it to work, but I quickly dismissed that thought, because Darwin loves me and would never take my Chocolate Bar without asking permission.

I turned the kitchen upside down. I looked in all the girls' favorite hiding places. I searched under the couch -- no mean feat for someone who's eight months pregnant. I took up and replaced all the items on the pantry shelf. No Chocolate Bar. I even opened up the oven and checked inside, on the off chance that some enterprising young tooglet had stashed it in there. But it's unlike the girls to hide away food. They usually eat it right away and then look guilty if I catch them. Babs in particular, when she knows she's done something naughty, will hide her eyes and refuse to look up for the longest time. It's cute, kinda.

When Darwin came home he searched as well. Readers, we cannot find my Chocolate Bar anywhere in the house! How does a Chocolate Bar simply go missing, with no traces? I wanted that Chocolate! I could taste it! But alas, IT IS GONE. There will be No Chocolate for Mrs. Darwin, and I did so look forward to it.

Sob.