I may have found a way to help Mrs. T kick her chocolate addiction

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor loves chocolate. No, more than loves. It’s more like the attraction Romeo felt toward Juliet, that the Dalai Lama feels toward achieving oneness with the universe, that Ronald McDonald feels toward cheeseburgers.

It’s an addiction.

Our annual summertime trek to Mackinaw Island inevitably becomes, at some point, an orgy of fudge. Come Halloween, we wind up having to purchase nearly twice as much candy as we strictly need for trick-or-treaters; half goes to the kids, half is consumed by Mrs. T in the days leading up to the holiday.

Despite being a choco-junkie, she manages to stay slim and beautiful. (Feel free to hate her for this, ladies. All her friends do.)

At any rate, with every illicit nibble of chocolate Mrs. T takes, she complains bitterly about her habit.

“Oh, I shouldn’t be eating this junk,” she moans. “It’s so bad for me!”

And then the Snicker’s bar disappears. She can’t help herself.

But maybe I can.

This notion came to me recently after reading an article in a Canadian newspaper about a woman, Sabrina Orrico, who found an unpleasant “surprise” in a box of mini chocolate bars she purchased from a Toronto drug store.

She intended, allegedly, to hand out the candy to trick-or-treaters. But—being a chocoholic like Mrs. Taylor—she felt obliged to “sample” the goods first.

Inside the box, along with the candy, Ms. Orrico discovered four packages wrapped in newspaper.

Ms. Orrico was upset, thinking the newspaper had been stuffed in the box to make it appear fuller. She pulled the bundles out and unwrapped the first of the four packages. It contained wire cutters.

The second package held a section of plastic pipe. Inside the final two packages were copper wire and a half-empty bottle of liquid.

Now, 20 years ago, someone might have found all this stuff and thought, “That’s odd.” Times being what they are, however, Ms. Orrico’s response was, “Holy moley! A bomb!”

Despite filmmaker Michael Moore’s assertion that the only crime in Canada happens when Snidely Whiplash ties Sweet Nell to the railroad tracks, Ms. Orrico was worried. So worried, in fact, that she shook the package.

I’m guessing Ms. Orrico has had no formal bomb squad training. I don’t know about you, but when I’m holding a box that I suspect is a bomb, the last thing I’m inclined to do is shake it. Placing it gently on the ground, and then running several miles in the other direction while repeatedly reciting Hail Mary’s is more my speed.

Instead of calling the police, Ms. Orrico repackaged the bomb-making equipment and returned it to the store for a refund. I’ve dealt with employees at those ironically-named “courtesy counters” before, and frankly, I can understand Ms. Orrico’s thinking on this one.

At any rate, Ms. Orrico got her refund, nobody got blown up, and Halloween progressed as it always has. With one minor difference: Ms. Orrico says she is now afraid to eat chocolate. She has developed a serious aversion to it, in fact.

So I’m wondering if a similar trick might work on Mrs. Taylor. There’s a huge, orange tub of candy bars sitting in our guest room closet right now, awaiting the arrival of this year’s crop of costumed children.

I have a windup alarm clock, some wire and a couple pieces of scrap PVC pipe. Come Halloween night, those items will be halfway buried in the candy and I’ll be standing in the shadows behind Mrs. T with an inflated paper bag.

I’ll let you know how it works out.



More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.