Charley Brown Chocolates

Every year at this time my office starts to fill with all sorts of candy, cookies and other assorted treats. It’s the yearend holiday thank you ritual which is always enjoyed but equally dreaded for it’s high fat low fit content. The other day each one of the docs received a nice box of Frango chocolate mints, a holiday truffle that is a well loved tradition in these parts. They’re delicious and each one of us received a one pound box.

In our office we all pretty much "toss it all on the pile.” What comes to the office, stays at the office. But this year, after opening my box of truffles and leaving them out all afternoon, I found only a couple had been eaten. It was then that I got to thinking, maybe I should just take the rest home. Afterall, Evan and Kelsey will love these. And the inlaws will be over on Christmas. No one’s eating them anyway and the medical assistants all but pleaded with me to get them out of there.

Needless to say, I decided to take the rest of my box of candy home. I had a bit of a guilty feeling over this but figured, what the heck. The package had my name on it. I had offered and no one took advantage. They’re going! I did kind of hind them under some x-rays I was taking for the next morning; not that I was feeling too guilty. By the time I was driving out of the parking lot I was wondering if anyone would notice my chocolates had been removed from the pile of treats.

By the time I stopped at the hospital to drop off the x-rays I was feeling downright defensive: they were my chocolates, dammit, and they weren't being eaten at the office. As I opened the back door of the truck to get out my x-rays fate took a hand. The first thing out was my box of Frango Chocolate mints which, unbeknownst to me, had slid over against the door, ready to escape my kidnap. I was completely frazzled as my little box of chocolates hit the ground spilling almost all of its contents on the surface of the parking lot. I was so farmisht I almost left them, like those bums who finally get around to emptying the ashtray of their car in the grocery store parking lot. But I didn't. Instead I bent over there in the wind and mist, quickly placed the box with the few that had been considerate enough to stay put back in the truck, and then spent a long couple of minutes trying to collect the fallen and their little white paper cups before they sailed off.

Next time I'll buy my own damn chocolates. These were definitely not worth the physical and psychological effort. I just hope I won't have to answer any questions from the staff about a missing box of candy. Good grief!