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Kids these days…
As I discussed in a recent post, sometimes our adult children do things we’re not proud of. It’s even more painful when you catch them in the act yourself. So you can imagine my distress when I saw my beautiful little girl in a compromising position (see picture). Ok, she’s 21 years old, and is normally a virtuous person of sound judgement. And we all have the occasional lapse. But you can imagine how upsetting it was for me to see her lifting the top layer of chocolates, which was still half full, so she could steal a chocolate from the bottom layer.
Me: “What are you doing?!?”
Her: “What?”
Me: “You can’t take chocolates from the bottom layer! Not until we finish the top layer!”
Her: “Why not?”
Me: “It’s just wrong.”
Her: “It’s wrong to take chocolates from a box of chocolates?”
Me: “There are right ways to do that, and there are wrong ways to do that.”
She rolled her eyes, and continued her distressing behavior. Right in front of me. I’ve been upset ever since.
If anyone would like to chime in below, and help me explain to her why this is so wrong, I’d appreciate it. She won’t listen to me. She says I’m being ridiculous. If you can imagine.
It’s not easy being a father, sometimes.
I’d console myself with a piece of chocolate, but the only ones left on the top layer are yucky.
Published in General
Corzo, perhaps?
How else are we going to eat both chocolate covered cherries?
People, people, please! There’s a simple solution to all this. Well, maybe not the part about bringing up Kamala in a discourse on Chocolate. That may be a cardinal sin. But back to what’s important:
https://kobasicscandies.com/
In Sacramento. It’s worth planning a layover there on your next trip. Especially on your way out. It will cleanse your mind as well as your palate, as you make your escape, and get a head start on renewing your faith in whatever remains of humanity in the rest of the world.
At Kobasic’s, you tell them how many pounds you want. They’ll prepare a box, and you begin: “Give me one of those, and one of those, and one of . . . oh, no, three of those . . .” and so it goes. Or, if you prefer, you can say, “I’ll take five pounds of dark chocolate cherries.”
Then select a “small” bag for your personal indulgence on the way to the airport. Or maybe walking back to your car.
Oh, yeah. There’s this: THEIR BOXES ARE ALL ONE LAYER!
Sounds like English was not Aristotle’s first language.
But there’s this, @drbastiat: Please explain your use of the words “chocolate” and “yucky” in a single sentence?
This also may be a cardinal sin.
If a box of chocolates belongs to someone specifically, then that person has complete authority.
But if the box of chocolates belongs to the entire household, then time is the important factor. The first three or four days, yeah, the top ones should go first. After that, it’s anything anyone wants. :) :)
Tragedy of the Commons, here we come!
Ebonics.
*Sigh*
I think Dr. B soaks himself in bourbon for an hour, then he’ll eat that piece of chocolate.
Doc, however natural and tempting it may be to reevaluate the adequacy of your entire parenting career based on this one incident, try to resist doing so. Rather, take a lesson from ancient Jewish history.
Were I so blessed as to have this young woman as my own daughter, I would tell her the story of the great first century BC Babylonian Talmudic scholar Hillel who, when asked by his daughter why it was inappropriate to circumvent the normal order of things so as to secure for herself a choice morsel and thus deprive her sisters of that pleasure, explained:
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!”
He then put his foot down. So to speak.
Speaking of great moral lapses, I am suspicious that the photo was actually a recreation of the sinful chocolate search and not a true journalistic capture of the event at the time. I also suspect that second photo isn’t accurate, either.
The best chocolates in the world, that I have seen, are made in Fredericksburg, Texas. They encase a liquor or wine inside a candy capsule. It’s glorious. I’ve not seen any other place that does that. I prefer the port wine version. It’s to die for.
It’s closing in on two years since I moved to Cookeville, TN. I really like this town, but one critical thing is missing. There is no chocolate shop where they make their own chocolates. We did get a shop that makes macarons last year, as well as a Crumble Cookie, so this ought to be a big enough town to support a chocolate shop.
The first photo is a legit, live photo of spontaneous degenerate behavior. Behavior so astonishing that I felt the need to record it.
The second is a download off the Internet somewhere.
Right. Just throw away the ones with coconut. Then you can move on to the bottom layer in peace.
Please pardon me for going off-topic, but this one sentence reminded me of my favorite Dolly Parton line:
“It costs me a lot of money to look this cheap!”
Everything I ever hear about Dolly just makes me like her more. How does she do that?
Southern girls.
I have read her autobiography, Dolly, and she is a great storyteller.
If she’s in her own home, and/or is the recipient of the chocolates, riffling through the box comports with confectionery etiquette. Sine die.
What if they’re dietetic chocolates, and she not dietetic? Then who gets the chocolates?
Oh, that really looks good. But sadly for my part of the country we are just leaving secure shipping season. (Bummer) I’ll have to put in my contacts with a reminder in the Fall.
From an economics perspective, it is probably utility maximizing to not restrict choice of chocolate to the top layer.
Typically, people have different preferences in chocolate. It is possible that everyone in your home has the same preferences, Doc, but unlikely. When your daughter chose a chocolate from the bottom layer, she not only benefitted herself (by selecting one from the bottom that she preferred), but she possibly conferred a benefit on others (by leaving one on the top that another probably likes better).
This is the kind of slippery-slope argument that will lead to the downfall of Western Civilization.
I prefer Principal Snyder from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” (there used to be a YouTube clip, but I can’t find it now):
“[That’s] the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.”
Finally someone who understands the gravity of the situation.
If the preferred variety is on the lower level but the upper level is still not fully consumed, do consumers (a) have to literally swallow lesser choices to make the better choice available (grossly inefficient); (b) await consumption of the lesser items thus allowing others to hold hostage their preferred choice (market distortion) or: (c) surreptitiously toss the remaining less desirable upper tier items in the trash (Inefficient with criminal implications). From a Law & Economics standpoint, the enforcement of the one-tier-at-a-time policy creates perverse incentives, inefficiencies and threatens the entire social fabric.