Why Is A Box of Chocolates Like a Box of Chocolates?

Recently our family received a one pound box of chocolates. It was given in a spirit of love and generosity and I was grateful for it. Have you ever opened a box of assorted chocolates for a group of small children?

I let each of my children choose one piece. Two of them got fillings they liked, the others ended up with some pink stuff. My 5 year old daughter spit hers right back into her hand and said "Yuck, I don't like this kind, can I have another one?"

The chocolates went into the refrigerator. That week there was a virus making the rounds in our family. I was feeling sort of weak and went to lie down. During my nap, the baby came toddling into the bedroom looking like Blackbeard the Pirate. He had chocolate dripping down his arm, clutched in his grubby fist and smeared around his face like camouflage pitch.

I got up to investigate. The carnage of partially bitten chocolates littered the kitchen and living room. Swirly dark chocolates were left for dead on the coffee table, their colorful fillings exposed and leaking. It made me think of the herds of buffalo, shot from trains for sport in the 19th century. Little lifeless chocolate bodies, collapsed where they were flung. Disgusting. Vivid, intact fingerprints bedecked the couch. However I didn't need to call in forensics because I knew the suspects very well.

As I squirted spot remover on the couch and rubbed, I began to wonder. As far back as I can remember, I can't recall knowing anyone who liked the cream centers. Why do they make them? I remember discussing the problem with friends. One person confessed to me that they had been a kind of confectionary serial killer. They had systematically and secretly mashed the bottom of each chocolate, searching for their favorite kind. Countless maimed and mutilated chocolates were quietly returned to their dark-brown cupcake papers until the next person went for them.

It reminds me of the perennial fruitcake problem. Every year thousands of fruitcakes are baked and passed out that nobody wants. Same with the chocolate creams. (Now chocolate covered nuts or toffee, that's different. I can see having some real interest in those). Does the manufacturing of fruitcake and chocolate creams have anything to do with supply and demand?

What are the candy companies thinking? Picture the Board of Directors of Blubber Gut Chocolate Company, seated around a glossy conference table. Flip charts and slide machines set up. "Wacker, let's make more of that pink stuff this year."

Maybe they think they'll make more money. They think that people will buy chocolate in greater volume, hoping to find more caramel or nut centers. They already know that 80 percent of what they manufacture will go into the garbage. It's a plot. It's probably not even real chocolate. Maybe those cream filled ones are coated with plastic.

My children were now far away from the scene of the crime. I began a dragnet through the house and found them playing downstairs. "Mommy," said Gracie. "Can I have another piece of chocolate?" She knew there wasn't much variety to begin with, and there were probably none left, but the innate hope to find the most delicious one runs deep in the human heart.