Chronos vs. Cocoa

I have said before that I would rather endure a thousand years of precisely scheduled, hellish torture than deviate from a schedule in Heaven. Let this House be blasphemous and insane; but it shall never be late. I have said that before. After I encountered a hot chocolate shop on wheels, however, I thought I would not say it again.

Bus delays and trains running late seemed adamant about ruining my day as I made a tight transition between classes and extracurriculars. With my built-in buffer time heavily taxed by these unfortunate happenings, I made a mad dash out of the train station toward the city streets, all in the pursuit of timeliness. I was determined that not one more variable would jeopardize my unyielding loyalty to the ticking clock hands. That was when fate, as the idiom goes, threw me a curveball in the shape of the Hype Chocolate food truck. I had never seen such a marvel parked right at the intersection of Georgia and Granville. Would I ever see it again? My feet were squarely planted, advancing neither toward the hot chocolate nor toward my meeting. How does a woman choose between her lovers, Punctuality and Hot Cocoa? For aeons, I could not move a centimetre, and I felt the seconds slip by like shadows in a silent night, never to be caught again. I asked myself which I cared for more: a chance encounter with a conveniently placed mobile café? The one that has supported my achievements and dreams? The one I have cared for since I was small?

The answer was hot chocolate, of course.

The clock in my head shattered as I advanced toward the till. Nine dollars and twenty cents later, I had in my hand the Original Hot Chocolate. I was immediately impressed by its presentation: thick layers of whipped cream, decked with marshmallows, and smothered in so much chocolate sauce that it spilled over the sides of the cup. Alas, one would hope that prettiness would accompany such a price tag. In a stupor of tardiness, I ogled the creation before me, taking photograph after photograph, until at last I decided to try it.

I wish I had stuck to my schedule. It was, unfortunately, a Purgatory chocolate through and through. Neither good nor bad, neither flavourless nor flavourful, it had every quality of an all-style-no-substance concoction. The one consistent flavour note I could detect was honey graham cracker. Given that they also had a s’mores hot chocolate, I suspect there may have been some flavour crossover. Beyond that, I tasted only the vanilla overtones of the melting marshmallows and slight tinges of chocolate. The drink was worth neither the price nor the delay.

Hype Chocolate did not commit a brutal crime. This drink was like being five minutes late to an appointment. It is not terrible, but it is a crime foreign to the high standards of this House. Seldom betray a schedule, I fast learned that day. Seldom will it be worth the price.