There is Chocolate on Everything I Own

If God hadn’t intended for chocolate to be messy, he wouldn’t have built me to like it so much.

If your life is anything like mine, there will come a day when your parents turn their back on everything they stood for despite all your begging and pleading growing up and they adopt a pet in response to their new-found empty nest syndrome. Now I am a huge fan of the zoo or even visiting a farm for the day and can watch TooCute! or Dogs101 on Animal Planet all day but that is where my love for animals ends. Now you can judge me for wanting a Simba-esque lion cub or a baby brown bear cub as a pet and admiring all gods furry creatures from afar but the cold truth is that kittens have claws and if I refuse to tweeze my eyebrows or pick a painful splinter from the heel of my foot I won’t voluntarily live through a similar experience thanks to this “cuddly creature.” My wildest fantasies include my dream home, a family of five and a ninety pound potbelly pig named either Porkypine, Hogwarts, or Pigfarts (shout out to my Potterheads and Starkids out there) but a part of me knows that this would never happen and my fish-killing curse means that my children will grow up as I did, raising their hands for having “no pets” as their teacher takes a survey in a second-grade introductory lesson on bar graphs.

Nonetheless, I found myself standing outside my front door one Thanksgiving break fearing the creature my parents now call “their baby.” The furry white fuzz-ball greeted me with the dog-equivalent of a hug at the front door and I have been his best friend ever since. My dancing partner/circus clown as he walks on his hind-legs for minutes at a time, sleeps at my feet, snuggles with me on the couch, and follows me around the house whenever I am home.

My family used to laugh and say that he could sense my apprehension towards him and that he was putting out his most cute towards me in an attempt to win me over.  I however, figured it out early. I was a dog’s dream: a messy, food dropping, smelly-footed dream of an owner. After baking scones that weekend I realized the pound of butter I dropped on the floor to accompany the flower which already coated our hardwood floors was promptly licked up by my new pal, which actually helped me as much as it helped him. Eating Chinese food in the den on movie night? The canine ended up with half a wonton and some bits of pork fried rice-the relationship was mutually symbiotic.

I am notorious for being a messy chef and my inability to close a cabinet door has placed open cabinetry in my dream house a must, but it wasn’t until I noticed the puppy’s trend to nestle into a corner and rest his fluffy head on my shoes did I realize he must like the odor of my naturally potent feet (it’s a nature thing, I can’t help it!) which explains why he always accompanies me on the coach and at the edge of my bed on cold nights-he is attracted to my scent. He hasn’t been trying to win me over, I have been unknowingly bribing him to love me!

Alas, this was all still a theory until Christmas Eve when all twenty of my closest family were dining on fish in my Nana’s dining room and my youngest cousin was running around the house.  Naturally Riley came with us to my grandparent’s house for the holiday so we could expect his name coming out of my cousin’s mouth as they played in the next room, but the word “chocolate” accompanying my puppy’s name wasn’t the best of news. Turns out this recently rescued pup used to eat chocolates with his old owner and still had the taste and the stomach for it. The puppers managed some Ferrero Rocher and a Hershey Kiss and survived to tell the tale. Kind of a point of pride for my family, owning the one dog in the world who eats chocolate like a boss.

The chocolate incident was the selling point. For a dog with such a nose for the decadent treat, I knew why he was so keen on me. No I am not made of Toblerone, but I do leave a dark rich brown mark on almost everything I own. There are bits of chocolate icing in the fan of my laptop from that time I brought my computer out during dessert. There is a huge stain on my camera case from those truffles in Shakespeare’s Stratford Upon Avon, my gorgeous wool scarf?  yeah well that smells like hot chocolate from the Christmas tree lighting and my huge pajama sweatshirt has all shades of chocolate on it from celebratory nights at school, depressed nights at school, and movie nights at school. Eating in bed is not as depressing as it says when in college your bed is one of two pieces of furniture in your room. Okay so Jennifer Aniston has that hair, Victoria Beckham has her pencil skirts, the Olsen’s have oversized shirts, and Pharrell has his hat, right? Well, I have chocolate, judge me.

Maybe I should see a hypnotist or something but as far as I am concerned as long as I can successfully for forty days without the delicious stuff every lent I am no addict. If I weren’t this way my lovable pouch Riley, formerly named Mu-Mu (stupid neglective owners before us), sometimes called Honey Mu-Mu, otherwise known as Bear, wouldn’t love me as much as he does, and that just wouldn’t do. I know I denied him at first but even though there is no room for this 5’ 10” body in my little twin size bed, I will always make room for my favorite chocolate-imprinted accessory.