Chocolate pies. Chocolate gravy. Chocolate bars. Chocolate!
The only wreck I’ve ever had was because of chocolate. It is an addiction that I readily admit to, though I’m not likely to confess that my life is unmanageable because of it. It very well may be, but I’m not ready for that part of the step yet.
Chocolate did cause me to wreck my car when I was seventeen years old, though. Well, the truth is that my love of chocolate caused me to wreck my car. And, did I mention that it is the only wreck I’ve ever had?
The love of chocolate runs in my family like a sense of humor. My Granny (my father’s mother) was well-known in her church and in our fairly large family for her cooking. But, it was her chocolate that really got people going. She made THE BEST fried chocolate pies you could ever think of. My brother has come as close as anyone to recreating Granny’s pies, but still there is something missing. When I was just tall enough to see over the stove in her tiny house’s kitchen, she let me help her make them. I can still smell them cooking when I think about it. She wore these old house dresses and it seems like she was always cooking while we were there. Her kitchen would get so hot. What I wouldn’t give to have one (or 10) of Granny’s fried chocolate pies right now.
Then there was chocolate and biscuits. In my adulthood, I have realized that other people call it “chocolate gravy,” but we never did. If you said, “chocolate and biscuits,” everyone knew you meant some of Granny’s chocolate that she had patiently stirred in a pot over the stove and then poured into an old mason jar. Every year on my birthday, she made a WHOLE JAR OF CHOCOLATE just for me!
I can remember using the mason jars to roll out the dough for the biscuits too. Jar on its side, roll and roll. Then, use the opening to cut the biscuit shape and put it on the pan. I’ve never tasted any biscuits like Granny’s either. But, what made them so delicious was dipping them into that sweet, dark pool of chocolate on the plate. Mom makes chocolate sometimes to go with canned biscuits and it is really great. Still, nothing compares to the original. What doesn’t compare to my mother’s is her chocolate cream pies. (I never used the word “cream” to describe them, but now I know that is what you would probably call them. She still makes that chocolate pie for me on birthday!) The point is that I have always and still love chocolate. And, I think it is part of the DNA.
I’m not saying it is unique. I know there are many people who feel this way. What is it about chocolate that is so comforting? When someone tells me that they don’t like chocolate, I trust them just a little bit less. Can’t help it. Just seems wrong.
This also seems wrong, but I’ll confess it anyway. Often when I was in high school I would eat some kind of chocolate (usually a Snickers bar) and drink a Pepsi for breakfast! Once I could drive, I would provide rides for friends to school. I would leave early enough to stop at the convenience store and buy my breakfast. I was about as big as Twiggy at the time and had no concerns about health or weight. (Twiggy was a well-known teenaged British model in the sixties. She was extremely thin.) I thought I would be thin forever too.
On this particular day I must have decided to switch it up a bit. I bought a Twix instead of Snickers. I ate one of the bars and drank my Pepsi, parked the car in the back lot at school, and went about my day. I think it was in March because I know that The University of Alabama was playing some big basketball game that day. I think it must have been during “March Madness.”
After school and after I had dropped my friends back at their own houses, I was driving home when I looked down and saw the melted remains of that Twix bar in the space below the radio near the gear shift. I wasn’t even five minutes from home, but waiting to lick that chocolate off that Twix wrapper didn’t feel like something that could be done. I had waited until I was alone in the car and I couldn’t wait any longer.
It just so happens that my route home took me through a very sharp curve. I drove it every single day. I knew this. But, my mind was on the chocolate. So, as I was reaching down and trying to lick the chocolate off that wrapper, I was supposed to be going around the curve. Instead, I went nose first into a fairly deep ditch. So deep, in fact, that the two back tires were off the ground as the tail of the car stuck out of this so-called ditch. I wasn’t hurt. Not physically, anyway.
This was before cell phones, so there was no calling someone from the car. I got out, a little shaken, and took off running. I was a little ways away from any houses and I was smart enough to know that it was extremely dangerous for that car to be there on that curve. I was afraid someone was going to come around the curve and smash into my car that had taken a nose dive.
I ran to the first house. Knocked and knocked. Nobody home. Ran to the next house. Same. I was about to run from the third to the fourth house when a lady finally came out the back door (I was knocking on the front) and asked me if I was okay. I explained and asked, “Can I please use your phone to call my Daddy?” Here is a transcript of how that conversation went:
“Hello.”
“Dad, I put my car in a ditch.”
“Alright!”
“What? Daddy!”
“Sorry baby. Alabama just scored. What did you say?”
“I PUT MY CAR IN A DITCH.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But, I need you to come get me.”
“Okay, this game is almost over. They are in overtime. Your brother and I will come soon.”
I told him where he could find me when Alabama had either won or lost the game! I think this must have been 1989, so according to Wikipedia, they were about to lose to South Alabama.
I went back and waited by the car. It felt like forever. It wasn’t. Soon my father and brother pulled up, looked at my car that was basically like Carhenge now and said, “This is going to take a tow truck!”
I had not adequately described what had happened. Dad had expected he and my brother to be able to pull my car out of a ditch themselves. This wasn’t really a ditch. We had to call a tow truck.
I did NOT tell my father that I had wrecked because I was trying to suck the last bit of chocolate off a Twix wrapper. I just said, “I only looked down for a second.”
That is the only wreck I’ve ever had. I still lick the chocolate off of wrappers. I just try to keep my eyes on the road while I do.
