Life is full of pitfalls. With my stomach stuffed with enough body parts to almost reconstruct an entire galline anatomy (thanks to Tori Shin), well, to be quite honest, a whole bird with some leftovers (unless this particular Frankenstein chicken has two hearts, no head, four buttocks, etc…), I might have shortchanged my brain for that small avian one in the process. Why else would I have mistakenly walked into this Ozian trap of artificial and superfluous gaiety reined over by the bald wizard?
Coffee
Good and strong coffee was appreciated by this weary ambulator, after lugging the same chicken uptown for a mile. In hindsight, my clairvoyant and rare choice of coffee, especially in the pure, black form, in the land of Starbuck’s was an omen of what were to come. Although the store reeked of alarming commercialism and sugared sanguinity, which should have served as warnings, I had to order at least one marshmallow to along with a coffee in order not to overlook any potential, however small, of stumbling into an unexpected jackpot. Of course, I should have known, such serendipity may happen as often as winning the actual lottery (or less so because the lottery I do win, in various denominations less than $10).
Homemade Marshmallow
The hand-delivered marshmallow was suspiciously flecked with sooty black particles; upon a careful examination by applying much sniffing and dissecting, it was confirmed that the uniformity of the position, color and size of the particles were mostly likely to be vanilla beans. This sticky white ALF* seemed to extend its tendrils wherever and whatever it found – bare from the useful albeit powdery corn starch, the lack of which I found rather nice. My spirit soared by the transcendent airiness to a point midway between heaven and earth, yet immediately it crashed down by the hellish saccharinity. The stoic brown first-aide – mercifully sans sugar – came quickly to thin out my blood sugar. Hot Milk Chocolate
Effectively caffeinated and sugared, I was packing to leave when one underling of the wizard walked up with a tray of hot milk chocolate samples and a smile, which mysteriously disappeared when I told him that I would share the small paper cup with my accompanying Scarecrow-cum-Tin Man-cum-Lion. Refusing a free chocolate from the wizard must be an event seldom seen in Oz. My homunculus lost the battle, yet again, against the glutton, and I partook the viscous liquid. My juvenile education, while incorporating classical poems of broken hearts and unrequited loves, must have left out Snow White. The syrupiness went straight to my brain: Panic. Have you ever had the experience when something is so sweet that it burns?** If you have never had this Fear Factor type of adrenaline rushing experience, please indulge: As the Chinese say, you learn until you die (although I do hope that curiosity will not the reason of your demise). To the extent discernible in my state of panic, the milk chocolate tasted of caramel. But I have a feeling that no one will be interested in hearing my explanation to this trivial phenomenon. Little Brown
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