Life is Like a Red Foil Heart-Shaped Box of Chocolates

My daughter, Iz, has always been a huge fan of sweets. Iz’s motto is, “Life is uncertain, eat dessert constantly” when it wasn’t “Okay, okay, okay!” Typically, she got a treat after lunch and dinner; though after cleaning the family room last weekend, it appeared that the crumpled-up candy wrappers behind the TV and under the sofa were evidence that Iz felt dessert could follow breakfast, come before dinner, and be eaten whenever Mom was not seen or heard.

Given that both Iz and her older brother, Nathan, loved chocolate, I always had some on hand; Nathan was strictly an M&M guy while Iz preferred Hershey kisses and Lindt truffles. I have a set of blue vintage canisters with copper tops that are labeled sugar, flour, coffee, and tea; they sit on the counter. True to form, they contain everything but sugar, flour, coffee, and tea.

The sugar canister houses all the chocolate, and the flour container holds Charms blow pops and Tootsie Roll pops. The coffee canister contains gum (though the ratio is one piece of gum to every ten wrappers that Iz can’t be bothered to throw away), and finally, the tea canister ACTUALLY holds Tazo Awake tea. The tea is for those times when Ellen and I discuss life over a cup of tea and a glass of wine; you can probably guess who’s drinking the wine and who’s drinking the tea.

Anyway, after Iz eats, she immediately brings her plate to the counter and asks, “Can I have dessert now?” Depending on the time and how much leverage I need, especially in the evening, I say, “Yes” or “After tubbie.” If I say “After tubbie,” she groans, whines, and rolls her eyes; however, after a stern word or two from me punctuated verbally by my Mom’s “Period!,” she storms up to the bathroom saying, “Okay, okay, okay!”

Besides the poorly hidden wrappers in the family room, I could often tell if Iz had helped herself to sugar, flour, or coffee. Sometimes I could hear a canister screech across the granite counter top, which wasn’t a reliable indicator most times given that I believed Iz turned up the TV volume to cover her screeches. Other times, I could see that a canister had been pulled out from the wall a tad or left in plain sight in the middle of the counter. My conclusion was that Iz needed to watch more C.S.I., so she would know how to cover up a crime scene.

As Valentine’s neared, Iz informed me that the “chocolate box,” as she called it, was almost bare. When out shopping one night last week, we passed the candy aisle and she said, “Mom, remember? We need more things for the candy box.” Before we could take the right turn down the aisle, the aisle end cap with all the Valentine’s Day candy caught her eye.

She was totally enthralled by the red foil heart-shaped boxes filled with pieces of chocolate. It figured that my daughter would not be easily taken in by the conversation hearts or the red and white M&Ms; it was shiny and the most expensive confection for her! There in the candy aisle it would have been impossible to ever deny that she was my daughter.

She looked at me, pointed to one of the red foil heart-shaped boxes and asked, “Mom, can I get one of those?” I sighed like I usually do when she asks for something I didn’t budget for and thought that I really shouldn’t be buying for her. Just then, I looked at her face, which had now turned into red foil heart-shaped box with a mint dream and a milk chocolate butter cream caramel where each brown eye used to be, and I said, “Okay.”

We brought the box home, and after dinner that night, she selected two chocolates. Unfortunately, a wave of 18-year-olds blew into the kitchen the next afternoon, and Iz’s box of chocolates was rendered empty. She put her hands on her hips and asked, “Who ate all my chocolates?!” I tried to blame it on the cats; however, she saw right through the fur coats to the cotton hoodies.

When I went Valentine’s Day shopping on Sunday, I glanced through all the red foil heart-shaped boxes in Target. I remembered my Dad always giving my Mom a very goofy Valentine’s Day card and a red foil heart-shaped box of chocolates; I smiled, and I thought that it would be a nice tradition to start with Iz. I picked up the 56-ounce bag of M&Ms for Nathan, which I knew would be inhaled in less than two days. Speaking of which, where, oh where is my 18-year-old metabolism?

After Iz ate dinner on Monday night, she asked for her dessert. Not in the mood for the tubbie-before-desert altercation, I said, “Sure.” Iz went straight for her red foil heart-shaped box of chocolates and asked me to open them.

Once opened, Iz asked, “Where’s the map that tells you what chocolate is what?” Obviously, Iz was no stranger to good chocolate, the chocolate that actually came with a User Guide! Whenever her Dad came back from NYC, he always brought home a box of expensive chocolates; when I found out how much they were, I said, “Eeek! Don’t buy those again!” It was funny how I could spend $150 on a pair of shoes but balk at a $50 box of chocolates.

I told Iz that there was no “map,” so she’d have to just wing it. She selected two chocolates and went off to the family room to enjoy them while I thought “At least, they are wrapper-less!” As I went to take something out of the oven, I started to hear Iz choking or so I thought.

I quickly said, “Are you okay?” I went toward the family room, and then she raced passed me headed toward the sink. Before I could say another word, she got on her tippy toes, put her mouth over the sink, and started spitting out her chocolate.

All I heard for the next two minutes was…

“Ptooey-ptooey-ptooey, ptooey-ptooey-ptooey!”

…over and over again.

I asked, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” After what I thought might be her last “Ptooey!” she said, “Pto...coconut…eoy!” I laughed and asked, “You don’t like coconut?”

She shook her head back and forth. She commenced her spitting. I offered her a drink of water, which she gladly accepted.

Like the true chocolate trooper she was, she asked, “Can I have another one instead?” I said she could and presented her with the red foil heart-shaped box again. She pondered the chocolates like she was picking out an emerald, diamond, or ruby.

I said, “This looks like a good one.” She plucked it up and once again went off into the family room. I went back to turn off the oven but then heard Iz run into the kitchen once again, resume her “Ptooey!” place in front of the sink, and start to spit still holding half of the offending chocolate in her hand.

I asked, “What now?” She said, “Coconut again!” I took the chocolate, looked at it, and then I took a bite. I said, “Iz, this isn’t coconut. It’s a vanilla cream.”

She looked puzzled. I said, “I think you still had the taste of the coconut in your mouth, so it just seemed like it was coconut.” She said, “Oh,” grabbed the rest of the chocolate from my hand, and then went back into the family room.

I laughed and looked at the red foil heart-shaped box on the kitchen counter. I didn’t see a red foil heart-shaped box of chocolates though; instead, I saw my life. Given my month of emotional ups and downs, I realized that life was really sometimes like a box of chocolates.

Monday and Tuesday might be a mint dream, Wednesday might be pecan delight, where you liked the caramel but pecans were just okay, Thursday might be a dark chocolate roman nougat, where you could barely tolerate the cherry-flavored nougat but would consume it anyway, and Friday might end up being that dark chocolate coconut cream you just had to spit out. You had to taste it all, and sampling things from the red foil heart-shaped box was how you learned to savor the mint dream, tolerate the roman nougat, and spit out the coconut cream. Life was never knowing what you would get but learning how to deal with what you got. ♥