THAT'S LIFE: Chocolate shortage not so sweet

— On a recent visit, my mother casually made an announcement that shook me to my core during dinner at a restaurant.

It was noisy, but I heard her say the words “chocolate shortage.” That’s when the room started spinning a little.

I couldn’t believe that my mother, an admitted chocoholic, could so flippantly throw out this horrible news.

I also couldn’t believe that I hadn’t read it on the FRONT PAGE of any self-respecting newspaper. We have sports scores on Page 1 some days and news about people doing stupid things like ’60s singer Joan Baez falling out of a tree because she wanted to sleep with the birds.

People — did you hear me? We may be facing a chocolate shortage.

I didn’t want to believe it, but I checked the news outlets.

The Nature Conservation Research Council has forecast shortages in cocoa production in Africa, which will lead to an increase in chocolate prices, I read. Apparently, the farmers don’t have enough incentive to replant the cocoa trees. The trees take three years to mature, and the workers get paid about 80 cents a day. Pitiful.

The quote I keep reading is from the founder of the research council, who says, “In 20 years, chocolate will be like caviar. It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it.”

I don’t even know why anyone would compare caviar (blech) to chocolate. That’s apples and oranges, so to speak.

Chocolate is a necessity. Caviar is a luxury.

Even in our leanest years when I was growing up, we had two things — love and chocolate.

My mother made sure I never went without a Ding Dong. True, I did have a friend who had fun-sized Snickers at her house at all times, but I never felt poor.

Some of my best memories involve chocolate — the bag of chocolate-covered peanuts Mom and I shared after a great shopping trip; my Nano’s chocolate pie that has never had an equal; making no-bake cookies; the heavenly homemade chocolate cake and icing my mother-in-law used to make; watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory approximately 700 times; eating myself sick every Christmas Eve as I filled the boys’ stockings. Good times.

The funny thing is, I’m allergic to chocolate. When I was tested, as I recall, I had eaten a Twix for breakfast and had a Kit Kat in my purse (in case of emergency) when I got the news.

All it does is give me a headache. It’s worth it.

I also need chocolate for medicinal purposes. I have one or 10 pieces of dark chocolate every day. It’s good for your heart, you know.

Candy barons Mars and Hershey are allegedly working together on a solution. They’d better.

Maybe men can live without chocolate, but most of the women I know, cannot. Not and maintain our sweet disposition when the hormones are raging.

You think we raised Cain over the right to vote, take away our chocolate and you’ll have a fight on your hands like this country has never seen.

I’m taking action. Gold, schmold. I’m buying up all the chocolate bars.

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