Mashed Kisses

“You can give me all your mashed kisses if you don’t want them!” The child voice crashed into my thought process reorganizing Christmas décor into a minimalistic space. “Mashed kisses?” I thought to myself. “Mash-ed Kiss-es?”


Her little fingers were already eagerly peeling back the shiny foil from a chocolate kiss I’d been given by a stranger. Since I’d already done one wrong there, I couldn’t take candy from a baby. My mother taught me well. “Babes, I mashed it on purpose, to mark it.” I called back across the room. You see, I couldn’t just throw away a piece of chocolate. Every atom screams “value.”

Perhaps you think it strange that I would speak of chocolate this way. But, mind my words. It rates with walks in steamy rain, warm drinks on cold days, seeing friends you miss, and finishing an epic project. So if you don’t agree, that’s OK. I’d just recommend some psychoanalysis to help clear up some obvious issues.

The best chocolate will never harm your diet as long as a quantity less than five pounds is consumed per Diem. The best chocolate is dark, dreamy, nutty, slightly bitter, with floral notes singing to grassy knolls with sheep graz—actually, scratch the sheep. But you get the idea. Its sublime and you know it when you experience it.

I hear naysayers. I hear eyeballs rolling. OK, well, when I was fourteen I didn’t like chocolate either. I looked around and asked, “What’s with the weird chocolate obsession, ladies?” Then it happened. “It” is “life.” Stress tears. Tears stress. Weight gained. Gained loss. Lost people. People died. Dyed my hair. My hair died and things. Things went to Goodwill. Goodwill went to pot. Pot ruins lives: lives of friends. Friends leave school. School leaves you. You get a job. Job hates you. You get the idea.

And chocolate was there, ever coming twixt me and trouble. The natural, life-supporting constant swept me off my feet time and again. (Well, it was more of a “pick-me-up,” but that still means the same thing, technically. Right?) It is like time-travel, world-travel, and clarity all rolled into one bean: the glorious cacao. Its mounds of things: hugs and kisses, food and drink, joy with almonds, a big hunk, a magnificent symphony, your own planet or the whole Milky Way, golden coins of lost treasure, 1000 times grand, laughter, a soft touch, a payday, a her and a she, white and dark, personal manly defenders with a muskets, it is a Reece’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cup.

I ask you, who else could be all that and still fit in your pocket, be always available in a thousand forms, never say a word, build you up, affirm your body type, melt like putty in your hands, mold to your whims, and then taste delicious in cheesecake and shaved on top? You’ve got to be seeing this by now. There is nothing in this world like the principle behind the atoms of a mashed kiss.