There’s no expiration date on the packet. I’ve been rubbing my head all morning. It looks as if bed hair had bed hair.
I remember other packets having dates marked 1 1/2 years in advance. But then, I think this has been in the pantry for that long, wedged between crackers I thought were another color and a jar of olives that didn’t have tentacles last time.
Whatever. It’s 11 degrees outside and our heater is broken. Perchance I won’t get sick.
If I do get sick, perhaps it’ll be mild, not like a trip-to-the-ICU or found-passed-out-at-the-base-of-the-toilet sick.
Chocolate is always good for the brain, even if past expiration – I think. We’re out of coffee, so this is the only option. Possibly the better, actually. Years ago in my college library, I remember reading a pamphlet they circulated stating how chocolate contained more energy effects than caffeine. There were many additional facts on the benefits of chocolate but I was too tired to read them.
If the cocoa is expired, maybe the bacteria that’s inside isn’t that bad for you. Maybe that’s the secret to billionaire magnates and creative geniuses. They’ve all had expired hot cocoa and the microscopic worms crawled inside their brains and made them outliers. This could be what Bezos and Banksy have in common.
Did I mention it’s freezing in this house? The dog’s eyes are saying do it.
Perhaps it’s not expired and tasting the pure chocolate flavors will inspire me to give up my office job and journey to South America to study under inveterate cocoa cultivators and start my own environmentally sustainable cocoa farm that turns into a multibillion dollar brand directing proceeds to rural farming communities.
This could be the hot drink that changes everything.
Then again, what if the bacterium that has formed inside this packet invades my unprotected cells and creates the coffee snob I’d always feared I’d become? From this day forth, what if I forsake hot cocoa and forever obsess over the bean and its inferior iterations? What if I become incorrigible, only drinking coffee farmed from the Andes, Himalayan foothills, or lakeshores of Maine?
I may be overthinking this, but one decision can have a ripple effect over a person’s entire existence. It could mean the difference between whether your friends and family call you a hipster or not.
I’d hate to be uninvited to festive evening soirees, coming-out goth parties, or gender reveals. Well, maybe not that last one.
The dog has left the kitchen. I guess that’s a sign. Oh, wait. What’s this? I didn’t see those numbers before. Expired last month. This is doable.
