CSI: Special Chocolate Unit

Gas up the Mystery Machine. Hillbilly Mom has a curious incident that needs a-solving.

Around noon the boys and I piled into T-Hoe, and over the creek and through the woods, to grandmother's house we went. For some tasty leftovers. I had planned to stop by the pharmacy for a prescription that had not been ready Wednesday afternoon. I figured I could give it a couple more hours if I stopped on the way home. Which, in hindsight, turned out to be a good decision.

I stopped at Casey's General Store so the #1 son could buy a 2-liter bottle of soda for his poker game tonight. Not that we let him host such soirees. It is at his friend's house, and both parents will be home, so I figure it's safe enough for a gaggle of 15/16-year-old boys to play poker with chips only, no money exchanging hands. His grandma had given him a bottle of Diet Coke yesterday, but I can't visualize the boys hopping up and down clamoring for such an elixir. So I forked over some cash, parked in the no-parking zone next to the handicap spot, and waited. #1 was back in a jiffy, carrying TWO 2-liter bottles of Coke, and a chocolate-frosted cake donut in a bag. "I had to get two," he said. "It's a bargain, really, either one for $2.00 or two for $3.00. So I actually SAVED you money!" The donut? "I was hungry." You remember that we were going to grandma's for lunch, right? And she lives 1.5 miles from Casey's.

We found my sister and her husband the ex-mayor and their college daughter already at the trough. #1 waltzed in like an adolescent needing to be booted from Dancing With the Stars, and stowed one bottle of Coke in the fridge. Then the three of us careened around the kitchen like just-fired pinballs, filling our styrofoam trays. That's when the mystery began to unravel.

"What's that on your shirt?" My sister teaches kindergarten. No soiling escapes her eagle eye.

"I don't know. I didn't think I was going to see anyone, so I just left on my old shirt that I wear around the house. I thought it was clean."

"Well, you have chocolate on your back."

W. T. F. ????

I twisted and turned, but could not see anything. I took her word for it. The Ex-Mayor concurred. In fact, he wouldn't let it rest. "Now how could you get chocolate on your back?" I don't know. Let's form a committee and write a grant and study that topic, shall we? My mom hovered around, tsk-tsking, looking at my back out from under her glasses. #1 chimed in, "There's definitely chocolate on your back." Great Googly Moogly! Shouldn't someone have been watching TV or snoring on the couch?

"I'm certainly glad I didn't go in the pharmacy like this. Thanks, boys, for telling me I had a huge stain on my back." They looked at each other. The Pony said, "I don't think it was there before." #1 agreed. Or else they just never look at my back. My niece even pointed it out with a pointy finger. "It's right here." A place where I could not reach with my own appendages. Though I vaguely remember Farmer H laying his hand on me yesterday morning when I was deviling those eggs. Perhaps after I had seen him slurping at his finger after dipping it into the leftover sugar-free frosting in the Duncan Hines tub with the red lid. But the boys said it wasn't there before we left home today.

Then the mystery deepened. As #1 strode across the kitchen for more rolls, Niece hollered, "You have it all over you, too! On your butt!" Indeed, #1 had a swatch of chocolate on one jeaned butt cheek. When he turned around to see it, like a dog chasing his tail, I saw that it was also on the front of his jeans, under his left pocket. We blamed the demon donut. But couldn't explain how it got on my back. #1 is not given to fits of touchy-feely hugging of the maternal unit. Especially while riding shotgun and eating a donut.

And then we almost put in a call to CSI: Special Chocolate Unit. My mom lifted up her sweat-shirted arms, pirouetted near the oven, and declared, "I have chocolate all over me! Look! It's on both sleeves, and the front of my sweatshirt."

Well, call in the dogs, pee on the fire, and barricade yourselves against the roving chocolatier! Something ain't right in Hillmomba.