the cure for all ills

I woke up with a cough this morning, so when I saw a story on Yahoo about a cure for coughs, I read it with some interest. According to the story, some researchers from Imperial College London have found an ingredient in chocolate that appears to be more effective than codeine in stopping coughs.

Chocolate! Is there anything it can't do? Maybe it can cure baldness or possibly some ingredient in chocolate could be used to cure erectile disfuncion.

I saw an advertisement for a chocolate candy bar once that said if you ate chocolate between meals it would curb your appitite. I tried it and it works.

And it can get you girls, too. I remember reading that in World War II the GIs who liberated France offered chocolate bars to the French women and they picked up chicks that way. Chocolate bars can also finance education. In my neighborhood, the school kids come around a couple of times a year selling candy bars for school. I'm all for education; so I buy a few.

But there is the dark side, too. I remember being behind a woman in the checkout lane of a supermarket once. As the clerk was totalling her purchases, the woman looked around the store as if to make sure she wasn't overheard, then handed the clerk a candy bar wrapper crushed and barely recognizible.

"I need to pay for this. I ate it while I was shopping."

Then she looked around again, with the hollow eyes of an addict, focusing on no one, simply trying to make sure she hadn't been identified as a user. I thought, "she couldn't freaking wait until she got home?"

But who am I trying to fool. We've all been there. It's like when you find one lone chocolate bar in the kitchen cabinet and, at first, you say, no, I won't eat that. Then you look around inside the cabinet a little more; then hesitate and cast a quick glance around the room, even though you know you are alone. And finally, unable to resist, you eat that last chocolate bar and throw the wrapper in the trash, and you tell yourself you didn't need that chocolate, but down deep inside you know there was no way you were going to leave that kitchen without that chocolate in your stomach. You tell yourself that you'll stop buying chocolate bars so they won't be around the house to tempt you. But you know that next time you're at the supermarket you'll be pushing your cart down the candy aisle, even though there's nothing in that aisle you need, and you'll get too close to the shelf and you'll bump the shelf and a package of chocolate bars will fall into your cart. You know you should pick them up and put them back in the rack, but they will sing a Siren's song and you'll feel that animal lust and you'll continue down the aisle, go through the checkout lane, pay for your groceries and leave. When you get home, and put your purchases away, you'll eat one of those chocolate bars. You know you will.

And later, there will be a knock at the door, and the sweet little kid at the door will have a box of chocolate bars and as you buy three of them and look into his innocent face and make eye contact you realize you are looking down into the black unforgiving soul of Beelzebub himself. And you will eat those candy bars and wish you had more.

And, maybe that nasty cough will be gone.

I might also suggest a tall glass of milk to go with those chocolate bars. Another favorite of mine is a cup of black coffee whose steaming flavorful darkness adds the perfect touch to a good chocolate high.

I'm Jimbo and that's the way we do it here in Jimbo's world.