Did your parents have a routine conversation–one that they repeated frequently while not being conscious that the conversation was routine? My parents did. When they lived in Manhattan just about every night at about 8:30, my Mom would say, “I just need a little something….something chocolatey.” She didn’t really like sweets, she would explain, but every once in a while liked bit of dark chocolate. As soon as she’d make these observations, my father would jump up and say, “I’ll go out and get some.” (Great thing about NYC is that there’s a corner store on every block with lots of gourmet treats.) He’d come back and we’d all enjoy the chocolate together.

I wasn’t a huge chocolate fan back then. I mean, I would eat and enjoy it, but I didn’t have a voice coursing through my veins telling me I need chocolate NOW. Like I do every night now. Some nights I’m lucky. I’ll just happen to have a Haagen-daas chocolate/dark chocolate bar. Or….like when I was back east and my sister had “Death by Chocolate” ice-cream in her fridge. It’s a good thing I don’t find these in my freezer often because I still have some baby weight to lose. When I don’t find “Death by Chocolate” I’m left foraging the baking cupboards hoping to find…..something…”just a little something chocolatey.” One time I hit the jackpot with chocolate chips. That bag lasted about a week….with me nibbling every night……at about 8:30. I haven’t had much luck in that cupboard lately.

When I “just need a little something chocolatey” (every night), my husband doesn’t jump up and go running out for chocolate for me. This isn’t Manhattan. However…..we’ve got our own routine that I just noticed last week. At least twice a month we go to salad buffet restaurant. I never order a drink because I’m busy dealing with the kids, he always orders a coffee cup for his after dinner coffee. Do you know what our quirky routine is? Everytime we get to dessert, he comes back to the table with HIS coffee mug filled with decaf and he places it in front of ME. Yes, me. I drink his decaf coffee. I bet he’s done this at least 15 times and I always happily accept the cup without much thought, until last week. I noticed.

Now I’m actually a little sad because it would have been kind of neat if we had carried on this quirky routine for at least ten more years. Then our girls could have made fun of it behind our backs. (Yes. I know they will find something else to make fun of. I’m not that naive.)

The truth is, now that I’m conscious of it , I think I’m going to have to order my own coffee cup next time. Decaf coffee tastes awfully good with triple chocolate brownies and ice-cream.