The Kid with the Chocolate

I was tootling along at a goodish pace across the countryside in my modest hatchback, enjoying the scenery and with a merry tra-la on my lips as it were. It being a lovely summer day and the landscape in a particularly lush and happy mood, I found my journey highly agreeable. My high spirits, I confess, were mainly due to the simple pleasure I always get from a solo drive and not the prospect of what awaited me at journey’s end. Not that I was enroute to my own hanging or anything grisly as that, certainly not. Merely a slight disinclination to the company I would shortly find myself in.

You see, I was on my way to pay a call to my cousin Laura, her husband David, and their singular offspring at their home in a wee little town next to a wee little lake full of wee little boats and local fishermen. She had requested my presence for lunch and, feeling my familial obligation to be civil, I had accepted her invitation. I won’t say that the wee little lake full of wee little boats wasn't an added incentive for my visit. I readily admit that an after lunch lounge by the shoreline, taking in the fresh air and idly watching here and there a lake trout being done a bit of no good by Bobby the dairy farmer and Harley the real estate broker enticed me a good deal. I have long harbored an affinity for the water, owing no doubt to some ancestor or another of mine having been a mermaid selkie or something of that nature. And so it was at about eleven in the bright A.M. that I found myself parking the hatchback in Laura’s driveway and ringing the bell.

“Abby! Come in, come in!” Laura fluttered, welcoming me heartily as was her custom. “Nice drive?”

“The nicest. What a beautiful day! The lake is full of hunters on the prowl for a good catch I see,” nodding backwards toward the lake as I crossed the threshold.

“Oh yes, they’ve been out since the small hours. David was, too, in fact, until about an hour ago, fishing out our protein for lunch.”

“Splendid! Nothing like the fresh catch, I’m sure. I look forward to tasting the culinary masterpiece you create with it,” I said, again, always wanting to be civil in the company of family.

“I’m finishing up and we’ll be eating in about a half an hour. Why don’t you go say hello to Laney, she’s in the sun room.” Laura led me through the kitchen to the aforementioned spot and sang out in a motherly tone at the door, “Laney, look who’s here. It’s cousin Abby! Come say hello.”

And here we come to the reason for my lack of excitement regarding the company I was to have for the midday meal. It may be a trifle taboo to say, a gal of my age and upbringing being expected by society to cherish every babe and toddler, but I confess I am not one with a great love for children. Nor am I disposed to enjoy spending hours with the proud mother and father, who, especially bucked due to this Laney being their first and only child, devoted most of their conversation to the goings on of this tiny Napoleon that dictated their day to day.

Having introduced me thusly to her little cherubim, or is cherub the word I want? In any case, the introduction accomplished, Laura biffed off to the kitchen to tend to her cooking, leaving me alone with the apple of her eye.

“Well, hello there, Laney!” I said, putting on my brightest, albeit feigned, enthusiasm. “Having tea before lunch I see.”

The golden headed girl was seated at a table befitting her stature, messing about with a miniature china tea set and apparently entertaining guests of her own in the form of a pink clad Barbie doll, a stuffed rainbow bunny, and what appeared to be a hand sewn, long limbed frog or amphibian of some description; the last a gift from my craft crazed aunt Flo I imagine.

David seemed to be haunting the house I knew not where, and as Laura was busying herself with lunch preparation, I saw no other option but to settle myself into an armchair next to the large windows and go on viewing the tea party in progress. A pretty good set up the kid had, too; complete with actual tea, milk and sugar and a diminutive chocolate cake, slices of which she was now distributing amongst those present.

Still, as I say, children not being my fondest form of diversion, I found my gaze drawn to the great outdoors beyond the window. Wishing that this specific viewfinder overlooked the lake rather than the back garden, I nonetheless occupied myself cheerily by following the chase of a couple of squirrels. When presently, I was awoken from my reverie by the child Laney tapping at my knee and reaching up, clearly wishing to sit upon it.

Again, one must be civil with family, so I obliged by scooping her up and settling her at the edge of said knee and entered upon playing my part as an interested audience. “Well, hello to you then. And how goes the tea party?” I asked in a tone one might adopt when meeting a friendly acquaintance at some public spot unexpectedly. I am not one to engage in baby talk, even when only a babe is present.

“Eat it,” the child stated promptly. And she attempted to shove what appeared to be one of her small chocolate cake slices in the direction of my mouth. I backed my head away sharply, “No, thank you,” I replied with not a little disgust. The child charged in again with the food object, “Eat it!”

“No!”

“Eat it!”

I immediately found this exchange a bit trying. I mean to say, when one is about to lunch, one doesn’t want the appetite spoiled. Not that I am opposed to having dessert before the meal as a general rule, but in this instance, said dessert was exceptionally unappealing. And I’ll tell you why.

Apart from my presumption that the cake in question was of the Easy Bake Oven variety and thus unlikely to be prize worthy, it’s method of service being this kid Laney’s chubby fist put me off to a degree I can scarcely express. I don’t know if you have had occasion to notice, but, in my limited experience, these knee high saplings are nearly always sporting unwashed hands that are abysmally sticky to boot. Not wishing to contract any form of foul disease via the bacteria most certainly swimming on the surface of the child’s skin, I found this insistence that I eat even the smallest bit of her cake diametrically opposed to my own desires.

“Eat it!” the child persisted, again making her chubby fist like a torpedo aimed for my gullet, when I gently caught and stayed her filthy cake filled hand by the wrist. And mark my chagrin when I perceived that what her chubby, grubby fist held was not indeed lightbulb baked chocolate cake from the tea party as I had previously supposed. Upon closer inspection, I realized this was a broken bit of a bar of chocolate, and a stale looking one at that. For one thing, held in the warm clutches of any child, a newly procured bit of chocolate ought to be melting and melding with said child’s ten contagion addled digits. This chocolate remained firm and solid, and I rather think it showed a collection of dust and bits of fuzz.

It was at this juncture that a thought struck me. I made a visual search about the room, the tea party table contents and about every corner I could see from the armchair in which I sat, staving off this devil in tiny human form. My suspicions were confirmed. Nowhere on the premises could I spot a larger bar of chocolate from whence this smaller chunk could have sprung. Not a treat to be seen, save the sliced chocolate cake. Not so much as an empty wrapper.

I turned my attention back to the child, who hitherto had been continuing her demands of “Eat it!” with considerable vigor. “Where did you get that?” I queried.

“In da chair,” she replied lightly, as if she were not setting off an atomic bomb in my increasingly anxious mind.

I scooped the kid up once more and hastily placed her back down on the floor, where she toddled off to resume her post as hostess to Ms. Barbie, Ms. Bunny and Sir Stretch Armed Frog. Turning to the seat that I had just left, I now spotted the merest glimmer of foil wrapper. Against my better judgement, I reached for the object and dislodged it from his hiding place. A sorry picture of what was a chocolate bar emerged, full to bursting with dust and debris it had gathered from between the chair arm and cushion. I put a hand to my throat by way of holding down the bile threatening to burst forth.

It was at this moment that Laura bustled back into the room. “Lunch is ready. What’s that?” She motioned to the formerly edible object in my hand. “Oh! I wondered where my little angel had hidden that one. Mom had given it to her on her last visit and Laney ran off with it and I never saw it again. Ha! That was weeks ago! Where did you find it?”

My reply was not necessary, as the kid responded on my behalf, “In da chair.”

“Oh, goodness!” Laura laughed amusedly. “Mystery solved!” And she took the discarded confectionery from my hand, hoisted up the kid and made for the door.

“Come on Laney, time for lunch. Abby, I think you’ll really love the roasted vegetables with the trout, they’re fresh from the garden.” Laura remarked as she floated toward the luncheon table.

“Uh...Yes,” I stammered, still in a state of shock. “Be right with you, just...just need to go wash up.” And I made my way to the bathroom to scour my hands in steaming water and gather my strength for the coming meal. Fresh vegetables indeed. I could only hope that my seat at the table was about 80 miles away from dear little Laney, lest she make an effort to feed me once more. The prospect was a sore one, but I could hardly flee for the great open spaces with the feast uneaten and my hosts un-thanked. As I have said, one does strive to be civil with family.