I
eat chocolate for breakfast. Not exclusively, of course (that would be
plainly irresponsible). Just a few squares while waiting for the water
to boil, or for my tea to steep. Black tea and chocolate, as the market
seems to be cottoning onto, are a good pairing. As the late-morning sun
casts a lambent glow across the tabletop, and the living room furniture
sits beyond in mute repose, I bite into my chocolate. CHOC! Chocolate is
an onomatapoeic word that well approximates the sound made when you
bite into a cold square of it. The crisp explosive moment when chocolate
breaks apart under the force of biting is one of its many appeals.
Don’t
think I’m unaware of the stretch of protocol here; I’m not defending chocolate in the morning as a sustainable practice. Many would consider it blasphemous, and they’re not wrong. Rather, it is this very breach of protocol that drives the practice - my own private rebellion against
social norms. I smile to myself every time I nibble on my chocolate,
in my bathrobe and slippers, over a steeping cup of tea. Fuck ‘em,
that’s why.
Chocolate
is a reason to get out of bed every morning. Tea, coffee, orange juice,
coca puffs - all good reasons. They are the small bait that attracts
the big fish, the string that pulls the larger rope into place to get
the work done. Life needs
incentive to proceed, and chocolate fits the bill admirably.
The
radio plays some news coverage of war-torn regions in North Africa. The
French are helping Malian forces reclaim territory from militant
Islamists. Terse voices are recounting the finer points of the conflict,
and in spite of my better humanity, all I can think throughout is, “Yes, yes, but what are they eating
for breakfast?” An ongoing curiosity of mine. Had U.S. troops not broken
into the Pakistani bunker holding legendary terrorist
leader Osama Bin Laden at 1:00 AM on May 2nd of 2012 and proceeded to
assassinate him, what might he have eaten for breakfast a few short
hours later that morning? Or, for that matter, U.S. President Barack
Obama that next morning, receiving the debriefing over a table set
with... what? Wheaties? Eggs and toast? What does the US' #1 eat for breakfast?
Perhaps it’s that I was raised without it. Morning time in my household was an up-and-out affair, with ancillary items like breakfast dangling for the taking. Lack becomes a fixture in the landscape of childhood if nothing is offered, and the habits that take root earliest are the hardest to weed out. I’ve worked hard in my adult life to reclaim breakfast, and I deserve a reward for the effort. So I eat chocolate with breakfast, and I eat it first.
