ON AN ALTAR OF DARK CHOCOLATE

Each year at about the time winter begins to frost the mornings I dutifully resume my annual dark chocolate consumption, as a prelude to vestigial hibernation. However, soon after I begin to satisfy that patently primal need in the necessarily gluttonous fashion (time is short!), for some reason I get a cold.

The trouble is, when I get these colds they interfere with my chocolate consumption, because nothing is delicious when you have a cold, it all tastes like outer space. And as every chocolateer can attest, there's nothing worse than eating outer space that you know is the finest dark chocolate.

Once my cold is over, though, I staunchly resume my chocolativity at a natural level until Spring, when my love of chocolate melts away like the snows of winter and I get no colds for the rest of the year, until the return of chocolate in the annual cycle that we know as life.

Some would imply that certain aspects of my clockwork colds are due to chocolate, that last year it was the M&Ms, the year before that, the After Eights, and so on back through the years; but I cannot honor such implications. I know the standard arguments, and I know that I could do 'better' on some nitpicky healtho-ethical level -- I could move to the tropics, I could pointlessly eat less chocolate, or even, insanely, no chocolate at all; or if I were really 'good' (an iffy existential category I've never really been comfortable with), I could chew on some tofu instead, or gnaw some roasted soybeans... but selflessly I prefer to remain an ongoing viral experiment on behalf of all humanity.

Yes, as an evolutionary pioneer at the vanguard of our chronic battle with insidious cold viruses I must continue my work, regardless of the personal cost to myself. One day, humankind will thank me; until then, all the dark chocolate I can eat must be my sacrifice.

[Two days later: yesterday, Mick thoughtfully hit upon just the solution for my altruistic dilemma, as a result of his BlogBrothers NYC memory sojourn: egg creams! I can get milk and I can get something resembling seltzer (though with none of the spritzy fun), but has u-bet chocolate syrup been found anywhere in Japan since since Commodore Perry's arrival? Can a genuine egg cream be made in Japan? How can I explain to my fellow residents why it is called an egg cream when it contains neither?]

THIS JUST IN:

Egg Cream Key Update--

I quote Mick: "for all those ex-New Yorkers floating around out there, just a-hankerin' for a real egg cream... a 24 oz. plastic squeeze bottle of the legendary U-Bet chocolate syrup can be ordered online, at foodlocker.com." Fingers, don't fail me now!

Key Downdate--
"Presently, foodlocker.com can only fill orders within the United States of America. We look forward to filling international orders in the future."