This is a bona fide account of something that actually happened, written for your education.
For most human beings, at least, spring is a time of remembrance. You remember warmer weather. You remember the flowers you’d forgotten you’d had. You remember the way rain feels and sounds and you remember the pair of shorts tucked away in your closet for the past four months. But you forget a lot, too. Some of the things you forget about, like hot chocolate, is taken personally. Very personally.
Yesterday we were discussing this issue. The funny thing is, at our store, there’s always at least three different brands of us in several different flavors–chocolate or vanilla or cinnamon or coffee. I have two other friends, the Quick and Easy brand and the Artisan Chocolate brand. The three of us, with out little flavors and packets, side by side in the store.
We usually get along pretty okay except for the Artisan Chocolate who is always so uppity. He thinks he’s important because he’s Artisan, but I know for a fact that his chocolate is made the same way as the rest of us. Because we can actually have a conversation we were discussing the way humans forget about us this time of year. This was the conversation we had when we discovered how to be creative chocolate in an uncreative world.
Artisan Chocolate started it. “My sales are down 67 percent,” he said. Artisan Chocolate likes calculating percentages.
“My flavors haven’t been bought in two days,” complained Quick and Easy. “And I’m quick and easy. Make me in less than five minutes. Just add hot water or milk.” She was quoting her package and her commercials.
Quick and Easy is in these commercials on television. Her package bobs around and a voice says how you can make Quick and Easy hot chocolate in less then five minutes, just add hot water or milk. The humans, being uncreative, assume that a voiceover is making the voice, but it’s actually Quick and Easy talking. It’s just that nobody hears us talk because they’re not listening–until they turn on the TV.
“Do they mean hot water or cold milk? Or hot water or hot milk?” I wondered.
“Leave it,” commanded Artisan Chocolate. “It’s not Quick and Easy’s fault her package is unclear.”
“I hate springtime,” sighed Quick and Easy. “Only a few people glance at us anymore. And as the weather warms, it’s just popsicles. Popsicles, popsicles, all anybody ever buys.”
“People still take hot showers in the summertime,” I mused. “Why don’t they just drink hot chocolate, too?”
“Because people are uncreative,” said Artisan Chocolate dismally.
“No,” I said, suddenly realizing. “It’s us being uncreative. We’ve got to be like with coffee. Hot or iced.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” grumbled Artisan Chocolate. “Nobody’s going to want to buy iced chocolate.”
“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” I said. “You don’t want to be like the pumpkins, do you?”
We shuddered. The pumpkins came only during the fall. They came before Halloween and stayed until Thanksgiving, then they left. Nobody knew where they came from, or where they went. Because pumpkins were seasonal. And if hot chocolate became seasonal–
“We have to do it. It’s the only thing saving us from becoming seasonal.”
“Yes,” gasped Quick and Easy. “I’m going to run it by my commercial manager.
That was how it happened. The commercial manager said yes, and across the nation people were watching commercials with Quick and Easy–make it in less than five minutes, just add hot water or milk. Enjoy hot or chilled. Artisan Chocolate and my own brand got the idea from Quick and Easy and we got changes to our packages–enjoy hot or chilled. A big sign got posted above us in the store: Chocolate. Enjoy hot or chilled. It became a thing. And nobody except for me, Artisan Chocolate, Quick and Easy, and you, reader, knows how it happened.
This was super cute! Thanks for bringing a smile to my face today with your words!