Don't Judge a Box of Hot Chocolate . . .

. . . by the picture on its cover. And don't give it to your parents because your dad likes hot chocolate and you don't drink it anymore--even though you used to buy the biggest Swiss Miss box available and in college especially, it was almost a ritual to have 1 or maybe 2 mugs of hot chocolate late in the evening (or early in the morning) while lounging with friends, or reading a book, or working on a term paper. You still have the dark blue mug you always used whenever you visited your friend Lindsey at her little studio apartment (this was before you were roommates). It's the one she wrote your name on in swirly letters with a metallic gold pen.

Don't smile bemusedly and wonder why this same friend would give you a box of hot chocolate when she knows you have made the painful (but much lower calorie) switch to herbal tea. Don't count on the fact that she thinks you might drink it because it is "diet" hot chocolate. Oh no. Not this friend.

When you do give the box with the picture of a mug of hot chocolate on it to your parents, don't be surprised when you talk to them a few days later and your mom tells you to hold on, your dad wants to tell you something. He'll come on the phone and thank you for the hot chocolate, but tell you that "it doesn't fit."

Huh? You will be confused. He'll say Mom will explain. She'll come back on the phone and tell you how Dad got a hankering to try that fancy diet hot chocolate you were so nice to give him. She'll say how they boiled some water and got a mug from the cupboard. She'll tell you how she thought it odd when she opened the box and saw the gold tissue. "Strange how they packaged this diet hot chocolate."

She'll start laughing when she tells you she unwrapped the "hot chocolate" and out came a rolled-up t-shirt--and not just any t-shirt, mind you, but a hippy-dippy, sunshine-emblazoned, good times slogan-plastered, flowery, peace-lovin' shirt.

Lindsey got you again.

Thanks, Man.