The gospel according to Hershey and Nestle

There are only two kinds of people in this world, and the difference between them is irreconcilable.

No, I’m not talking about Republicans and Democrats. True, they’re irreconcilable, but when it comes to politics there’s also a third group—Independents—who are also maddeningly irreconcilable.

And I’m not talking about Internet browsers who see brown-and-white dresses, arguing with those stubborn browsers who see blue-and-black dresses. Oh, sure, they’re irreconcilable on the garment issue, but they usually bridge their differences with the other side when they find that they agree whether they hear “laurel” or “yanny.” (And if you have no idea what this paragraph is talking about, congratulations! You can Google up the answer, but only at the cost of your soul.)

No, when I say there are only two kinds of truly irreconcilable tribes for whom there is no middle ground, I am referring to those who suck, and those who bite.

I’m talking, of course, about chocolate eaters. (What did you think I was talking about? Get your mind out of the gutter, for goodness sake! This is a family paper.)

For the record, I suck.

Well, that’s not technically true, I guess. I don’t actually suck on chocolate, I just let the it sit on my tongue, waiting for my good ol’ 98.6 to turn a solid chunk of room-temperature chocolate into molten manna from heaven.

To do anything else with a chunk of chocolate is to violate its remarkable essence. Set it on the table, and it will wait solidly for you to get around to it whenever you have the time. Leave it there for a day or two — it’ll wait. It’ll be there when you’re ready.

But slip it into your mouth and the magic starts in an instant, because when you’re ready for it, it’s ready for you. Within seconds it changes from a solid to a creamy liquid, releasing all its sweet cocoa essence to transport you to bliss.

And it does it all by itself, without asking you to help in any way — like all that meaningless labor-intensive chewing.

But there are those biters out there who insist on the sacrilege of chewing their chocolate, who rob it of its astounding ability to change form all on its own, and who wolf it down without taking the time to tremble in anticipation. They lack the patience to let paradise come to them and rush ahead to seize it on their own terms — the kind of people who walk up escalators instead of surrendering to the peaceful ascent. And nobody likes those people.

Chewing chocolate? It’s an unforgivable sin.

Of course, there are rare times when a chocolaty chew may be forgiven. A Snickers bar, for example, loses all its appeal if you hold a chunk of it in your mouth until all the chocolate has melted. All you’re left with is a gooey mass studded with nuts if you go that route. So I grant dispensation for chomping down on a Snickers right from the get-go, just to avoid the disappointment that is sure to come once all the chocolate has moved on.

But what about Mounds bars? They have only two ingredients: Chocolate and almonds. Because I love both chocolate and almonds, I suck when it comes to Mounds — at least until all the chocolate is gone, when I chew the nuts with delight in anticipation of my next melting mouthful.

So, see, I’m not a raging anti-bite-ite when it comes to chocolate — at least when it involves chocolate-covered nuts. You can suck on a nut until next Tuesday and it will still be a nut, because nuts haven’t learned the magic transformation trick that makes chocolate so special. So go ahead and gnaw away at the tail-end of a Mounds. But only after all the chocolate has done its magic.

That’s just the way it has to be when it comes to sucking or biting chocolate. Hey, don’t blame me — I don’t make the rules. (Well, actually I do, but only because the rules are right, and because you’re wrong if you do it any other way.)

My wife claimed to love chocolate as much as I do, but she was a biter — maybe the most irreconcilable difference between us in our 48 years of marriage. Whenever she would see me walking by with a chocolate bar in my hand, she would beg me for a chunk of it.

“OK,” I would say, “but only if you promise not to chew it. You have to respect chocolate, and let it melt in your mouth.”

She would nod and give me those goo-goo eyes, and I would give in and hand her a chunk. Each time she would pop it into her mouth and start chomping, her eyes blazing with unrestrained rebellious glee.

“See, I don’t even know who you are,” I would tell her and walk away glum and morose at the cocoa carnage, resolving next time to leave the toilet seat up.

Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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