Wednesday, September 23, 2009

what's in you wednesday

Last week, I had a meeting in Orange County.

In order to get to that meeting, I had to leave my house at 5:30 in the morning.

My job was to meet with five of my co-workers (three men and two women) and review invoicing and contracting operations for a consultant that does work for our company. We needed to review files. We needed to review procedures. We needed to cross-reference time sheets against invoices against contracts to insure that we were being billed correctly.

This was a full-fledged audit.

Throughout the day, we called in an assortment of consulting staff for interviews in an effort to insure that they understood what they were supposed to be doing. And the people we were auditing were definitely on edge. Because even though they had everything in place - and the findings from their audit revealed that they were fully in compliance - going through an audit is a bit nerve wracking.

My coworkers and I were behind locked doors with boxes upon boxes of information that we needed to scour. And at least once an hour, I, or one of my coworkers, would pick up the phone to call the Vice President of the consulting company, who was the representative delegated to answering all of our questions. And if for some reason he couldn't answer our question, it was his job to find someone who could answer our question, STAT.

Lunch was brought in and while we ate, we worked. But about an hour or so after lunch, I could feel the energy begin to leave my body. At one point, I glanced up at one of my female coworkers, and we exchanged a look that was absolutely undeniable.

Words weren't even necessary.

I picked up the phone and called for the Vice President of the Company.

When he answered, there was a tinge of nervousness, because I have a reputation that precedes me. He knew that he was dealing with a hardcore professional.

This is how our conversation went.

Me: "Uh. Hi."

Him: "Is everything OK?"

Me: "No. It's not. It's really not. We have a rather significant problem here."

Him: "Oh oh. What's wrong? Should I come in?"

Me: "Sir? Where is the CHOCOLATE. There is no CHOCOLATE in this room. There is no CHOCOLATE anywhere in this office. I've looked EVERYWHERE. There isn't even a VENDING MACHINE. I am starting to FREAK OUT. Do you hear me? I am FREAKING OUT. We are under INTENSE time pressures to have this audit completed today. You do realize I cannot leave the premises?! So, how do you expect this audit to go well, under these seriously sub par conditions?!"

Him: "Yes Ma'am. I am sorry. We will have the situation corrected immediately."

A few minutes passed, but no more than five, and there was a soft knock on the door. When I opened the door, there stood the receptionist - and in her hands - was the largest bowl of chocolate I have ever seen. Larger, even, than the bowl I use at Halloween to hold 400 pieces of candy. In that bowl there were Reese's, Snickers and an assortment of gourmet chocolate imported from Switzerland.

I hugged her and kissed her, twice, on the cheek.

Interesting to me, is that myself and my two women coworkers, literally dove in to the bowl of chocolate. There were orange wrappers flying around, through the air, as we inhaled chocolate.

The men? Not at all.

They just sat in their chairs and continued to flip through invoices and time sheets, oblivious to us women-folk, as we got our much-needed fix.

The bout of craziness passed and all of our energy levels were restored. Our brains were able to function normally again, and so we continued the audit, without further incident.

This week, I power walked to Trader Joe's to pick up some critical supplies.


Later in the week, I power walked to another store to pick up more critical supplies. And then, I had to turbo-charge power walk home so my critical supplies didn't totally melt.

Hello. My name is Jen and I am hopelessly - I mean, HOPELESSLY, addicted to chocolate.

Recently, I've come to terms with the fact that I might never fit in a size two. Or four. Or six, even. Because until the day that chocolate stops tasting so darn good, or ceases to bring me an intense amount of happiness and joy, I am resigned to eating it. EVERY DAY.

Sooo. There you have it.

What's your addiction?

25 comments:

  1. My addiction is peanut butter & chocolate ice cream, choc. chip mint ice cream and reeces peanut butter cups! You are definitely on the right track.

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  2. Mine are chocolate and beer. I was on WW last year and lost alot of weight but this morning I got THE biggest shock when I tried to put on one of my "autumn" skirts and couldn't fit into them. I will obviously be cutting down on portion size and chips and opposed to beer and chocolate though1 ;-)

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  3. Yep. You definitely have the chocolate gene. We ALL do.

    XOXO AM

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  4. Oh yes, it's chocolate for me too. I would be been in the bowl right with you.

    A week or so ago, when I was having a bad day with my son, I posted on Twitter that there wasn't enough chocolate to get me through that kind of day. My loving (or maybe just smart) husband came home with two kinds of chocolate in his hands. :)

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  5. I too am a chocoholic...I love your blog! I have been reading it for about 8 months now and thanks for the laughs you give me! I love to read about the things your kids do and realize that my child is not the only one in the world that does these things.

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  6. Not gonna help with your addiction --- try Breyer's Chocolate Crackle...........DIVINE!

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  7. Those darn gas station cappuchinos. It started out as a weekend thing. Then one a day during the week. And now, every single day. If I could I would have one in the afternoon too.

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  8. The men you work with are not the men I work with.

    There are three chocaholics on my floor. We are the ones who consume the majority of the chocolate on the floor. We are also the ones who refill the community chocolate repository regularly and whose screams can be heard at surrounding universities when it runs dry. However, we are not the only ones to take advantage of the chocolate repository aka my friend Dustin's desk.

    The three chocaholics are one-third female, two-thirds male. We are fully representative of the demographics of our floor.

    I hear Dustin's desk calling.

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  9. Oh, and, I gave up EVERYTHING they tell you to in the pregnancy books when I was expecting. The soft cheeses, and lunchmeats, and sodas, and anything over 6 oz of tuna a week.

    I kept the chocolate. It was either than or antidepressants. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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  10. what's in me??? a 22 week old "almost" kid who NEVER sleeps and kicks all of my organs, including bladder - cuz that's so much fun - all day and night!

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  11. Well yes, chocolate is a real problem over here in our household. But you have hit on something very interesting...something I've been studying for years (and I'm not joking about that...I conduct training for a living and every day there is chocolate available for our students...I watch...I learn....I participate).

    Orange wrappers are the preferred candies (largely because they typically indicate peanut butter). Blue wrappers are garbage (we're talking about your Nestle's Crunch and Baby Ruths here...blech).

    I was delighted to see you mention the orange wrappers specifically. And have you TRIED the Lindt peanut butter chocolates?!?!? OHHHHH. Oh boy.

    Also...Trader Joe's...Soy Creamy in Mango/Vanilla? I know what you're thinking..."it's not chocolate!" Try it. Amazing stuff.

    Okay...back to work...and back to conducting my empirical candy study.

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  12. I just wrote a post about being addicted to something. Ugh...Facebook.

    But hey...I live in the Arctic, so I can't be addicted to anything that has to be flown in, i.e. Chocolate. Although when I was in Finland a few years ago, I totally ate and ate and ate chocolate...and it was SOOO good. The chocolate that comes to Kotzebue comes all stale and grody.

    Oh well. For now...I think I'll stick to Facebook, cause Facebook can't go straight to my ass. :)

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  13. HA! I love how the guys didn't even touch it! :) That's so funny! My addiction is ice cream. And I'm 27 weeks pregnant, and I just found out I have gestational diabetes, so I have to be SO careful what I eat. :( 12 weeks from tomorrow is my due date, and then you can bet I'll be eating ice cream again! :)

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  14. Coffee.

    But if I get chocolate in my coffee, oh boy, that's like Christmas.

    And I do occasionally got nutso and hide in the bathroom and spoonfeed myself melted chocolate chips and peanut butter.

    I feel your pain.

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  15. BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I absolutely LOVE, LOVE it!!!! Maybe that's my problem these days, I haven't had enough chocolate. Hmmmm...guess I need to go get some. Thanks! :)

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  16. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I absolutely LOVE, LOVE it!!! Maybe that's been my problem these days. I haven't had enough chocolate. Looks like I'm going to get some. Thanks! :)

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  17. LMAO- Jen, your blogs *always* make me laugh. Orange wrappers flying everywhere, indeed. That's great!

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  18. Chocolate is amazing. It is a rare day when there isn't chocolate somewhere in my house.

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  19. Hagen Das Coffee Ice Cream and HARD black licorice.
    There's nothing more to say!

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  20. So what I want to know is... WHY DO YOU GO ON THE CHOCOLATE WALKS WITHOUT ME? I would happily walk quickly for ice cream. What, you don't want to share your loot with your walking buddy? I am offended. There is only one way you can make this right: You, me, and a chocolate walk this weekend. Early. No sleeping in for chocolate hogs.

    -Debbie

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  21. My neurologist told me that she has seen actual brain scans of women as they eat chocolate and the brain reacts the same way as it would on specific drugs. With men, the brain reacts with salty food and fatty foods.
    Maybe next time you could offer the men some pork rinds...just to keep things equal ya' know.

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  22. Finnskimo - be my friend on Facebook! LOL!

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  23. Definitely chocolate.
    I'm really battling with myself over this- I can be a size 14 (Australian- US8) and eat as much of any chocolate I want, anytime. Or I can eat almost no chocolate and be a size 10-12 (6-8US). I just don't know which option I prefer.

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  24. You're killing me! I LOVE chocolate but it triggers my arthritis and causes my knees to swell to the size of grapefruits. Just had cortizone injections in both knees so I have downed a couple of bits of chocalate without consequence. Ugh!

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  25. So when are you in the mood to surf the net. Check out the green&black organic chocolate website. Beautiful pics of chocolate and they even have suggestions for a wine/chocolate tasting party. Definitely makes me want to quit my job at times and become a chocolatier! Certain times of the month I can't inhale a green&black chocolate bar fast enough...other times...well, I'm normally sane then and can limit myself to 3 or 4 squares...

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