Nuclear Chocolate

Story Sent in by Ann:

One winter a few years ago, Jeffrey, who I'd been dating, invited me to his house for a movie night and hot chocolate. He claimed to have "the best hot chocolate recipe" that I'd ever tried, so as you can imagine I was pumped.

He welcomed me into his apartment and said that he'd start on the hot chocolate. He stopped me from following him into the kitchen ("It's a secret recipe!") and so I waited for him in the living room.

He didn't return for a while, and the smell of chocolate and burning pervaded the little apartment. I called out to Jeff, but he replied that everything was under control - nothing to worry about.

After hearing him swear a half-dozen times, he entered the living room holding a steaming mug. He held it with a potholder and held it in my direction, as if I would simply take it without saying...

"Maybe you should just put it down on the coffee table. It looks hot."

He said, "Just take it."

"Put it down," I insisted, and he did. I was expecting it to look like hot chocolate, but instead it looked like speckled, dark-grey soup. It smelled a bit like chocolate, but mostly its aroma was that of burning ashes.

"Go ahead and try it," he said.

I said, "Where's yours? We should try it together."

He went for the kitchen. I bolted for the nearby bathroom, spilled as much of the goop down the drain as I could, ran the tap, and jumped back for the couch. Turns out that I didn't have to hurry. Jeff was gone for another minute or so, but he came back with a mug of the stuff (and he wore a potholder to carry it) and sat down with it, setting it down on the coffee table.

We cuddled a bit as we watched a movie, but I noticed that he never once touched his mug. When the movie was over and he collected the mugs from the table, he asked me, "How did you like it?"

I said, "It was good, thanks."

"Really?" he asked, "When I tried some in the kitchen, it tasted like something died in it."

And he had still offered it to me to try? Forget this guy.