“I threw away the rest of the Easter candy.”

“What?”

“The Easter candy that was left over – I threw it away.”

“You mean the chocolate?”

“Yeah, the bag that was in the dining room. I threw it out.”

<horrified face> “But there was chocolate in there!”

“Uh-huh. I was sick of the kids asking me about it every day.”

(I will admit – this part about the harrassing children made perfect sense to me.)

“But it was….chocolate! Can you get it back?”

“Um…no? I threw it away, like in the trash.”

“Was it sealed up well in a plastic bag? Have they collected the trash already?”

“Yes, they picked it up already. It’s gone.”

That’s right, people, I considered digging through the trash. I most likely would not have followed through with an actual dumpster dive; the point is, it was an initial gut reaction to horrifying news.

Chocolate is practically a holy substance, rife with magical powers. In my mind, there are several important rules regarding the care, keeping and consumption of chocolate. Chocolate may be:

1. Hoarded
2. Coveted
3. Hidden where others won’t find it
4. Cherished
5. Resisted
6. Given or received as a gift
7. Used as a bartering or bribing tool (i.e., if you stop torturing your sister, you may have some chocolate)
8. Taken medicinally to cure bad feelings
9. Given a starring role in any and all household baking
10. And finally, most obviously, EATEN.

But it should never, ever be thrown away, unless it’s been proven without a doubt to have been tainted by some kind of poison. And even then, only if the poison is known to induce death. If it’s only going to, say, potentially paralyze one of my legs for a few hours, or cause a few patches of my hair to fall out…well, I guess it would depend on the quality of the chocolate. If it was the really good stuff? I’d probably decide that a temporary case of balding paralysis was completely worth it.