Should Chocolate Candy Boss You Around? - a frivolity

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Should Chocolate Candy Boss You Around?

In life there are many occasions when individuals are subject to instruction: parents and teachers help guide children in their growing up, the State of Texas regulates traffic for the greater good (although one notes that the drivers of those big Texas Department of Transportation pickup trucks often seem to exhibit a cavalier attitude about speed, turn signals, and lane choices), and ministers lead the faithful in observance of religious teachings. The mature adult accepts all this.

Except TXDOT. What is it with them?

However, being lectured by a bit of foil-wrapped chocolate is too much.

For years now some living rooms have been decorated with directives instead of attractive pictures, nanny-ish signs reading “Love God and Do What Thou Wilt,” “Live, Love, and be Happy,” “Dance as if No One Were Watching,” and other Mary Poppins-esque precepts.

Now we’re being nagged by chocolates through theological and philosophical treatises printed inside the wrappers.

Here are some recent examples, with appropriate human responses:

V. Revive the art of conversation.
R. At a Donald Trump rally?

V. Give someone a compliment.
R. After verifying with an attorney that said compliment is not sexist, racist, LGBT-ist, or culturally insensitive.

V. Watch more cartoons.
R. Chuck Jones as John Keats?

V. Why not?
R. You first – why?

V. Treat Tuesday as Friday.
R. Participate in the Stations of the Cross, have a fishburger, and then attend a football game?

V. Keep them guessing.
R. Keep whom guessing? About what? Why?

V. Be more loquacious. Start with learning the word loquacious.
R. Just what we need, a smart-mouthed chocolate with a dictionary.

V. Kiss and tell.
R. No gentleman tells.

V. Solve arguments with a dance off.
R. Imagine Rommel and Montgomery doing the tango. In bikinis.

V. Stay up until the sunrise.
R. Folks on the night shift always stay up until the sunrise and later. What’s your point?

V. Lend an ear and a chocolate.
R. I come to bury Caesar, not to fatten him.

V. Get dressed up with no place to go.
R. You wear a cartoon tee to church. What do you call dressed up?

V. Choose less ordinary.
R. Given the loopiness of our times, the ordinary is probably a better choice.

V. Give them something to talk about.
R. Why? Adults choose their own topics of conversation. You’re not it.

So what are all these sugar-sodden orders-of-the-day about? Has Hershey re-defined itself as a church? Is Nestle channeling the Dalai Lama? Are the Dove people receiving telepathic commands from Obi Wan Kenobi? Will Cadbury’s do counseling, hypno-therapy, and weddings?

Many people complain that certain government agencies have become unconstitutionally authoritarian. Evidence suggests, however, that is seasonal candies who have gotten a bit too pushy. Maybe it’s time we put those pushy treats in their place: “Get ‘em out! Yeah, that Baby Ruth. And the Mars Bar. That’s right, get ‘em out! Gettttt ‘em out…!”

But all the humans should be nicer to each other. TXDOT, especially, needs a hug.

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