Everyone copes with life’s curve balls in different ways.  One of the first little unexpected “hardships” that life in India threw at me was that our shipment took longer than we anticipated.  In that shipment was my stash of coffee and the drip coffee maker that I love.  I thought that the instant iced coffee I’d brought with me, and the local coffee shops would get me through to this rough patch of under three weeks.  Three stretched into over four weeks, and I found myself out of all coffee with no good coffee nearby. I had to turn to instant.

I managed to get myself through this difficult patch by melting a small square of chocolate into my coffee. It didn’t magically make it taste better, but it made it bearable.  I was very happy to get my stash when the shipment arrived, but I continued to buy the chocolate.

It’s Dairy Milk, a bar that I have fond memories of eating as a child. That could be why I kept picking up one bar at the grocery store, smuggling it into the house and hiding it in the freezer. It was my treat, and I didn’t share.  When I faced some difficulty, I got some satisfaction at smashing the frozen bar on the counter, to break it up into bite-sized pieces, and later slipping in to the kitchen to just grab a piece to help me deal with whatever troubles I faced.

Last week was a frustrating week, and I noticed that my consumption increased from one bar to two.  Two BIG bars.  Then Willy caught me digging into my stash, and gave me a worried look when I told him that this was how I smoothed out the curve balls.  it made me pause.  The kicker, however, was what the lils did at the birthday party they were attending yesterday.  Their loot bags contained miniature versions of the very chocolate bar that I have been sneaking into the house.  Woo looked at his and said, “Oh, this is for you, mommy!” Goose just handed it to me, saying, “Here, this is your kind of chocolate!”

Apparently I am not as good at smuggling the bars into the cart, house, and freezer as I thought.  Maybe it’s time to find a new way to deal with the monkey wrenches that come my way.