White Chocolate Coconut & Corn Flakes

Brand: Fin Carré

Cost: 45p

Found at: Lidl

The sun is out, the flowers are blooming, I am still in lockdown, and I am feeling tropical. I’ve cranked my heater up to 5, donned a tank-top and shorts, and am blasting every Israel Kamakawiwoʻole song that iTunes has to offer. I even hurried over to the Lidl and bought the most exotic chocolate available in the discount section, now overflowing with Easter goodies and nervous shoppers deliberately trying to look healthy. I was sure that with this chocolate in hand, there would be nothing to separate me from my daydreams of sunny beaches and Corona-free travel.

And now, several hours later, I am still picking my staycation experience out of my teeth. To its credit, this candy bar is fully loaded, with a dense conglomeration of coconut and corn flakes held together with only a minimalist matrix of white chocolate. The experience, however, is less like a day at the ocean, and more like a day in the life of a highland cow. As “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” wafts out of my window and into the cloudy afternoon, I wonder how long you can chew without risking mouth strain. And I wonder how loudly I would be laughed out of the ER in my bathing suit and sarong.

Instead of imagining myself far away under a palm tree, I imagine myself in a tent at the new field hospital down the street. I can just see the tired, stressed nurses in their contagion gear doubled over in laughter and waving in their colleagues to see the woman who was injured by a chocolate during a global pandemic. I picture them, in the weeks to come, leaning over the sick and frightened, and comforting them with the news that a few feet from where they lie, an American woman in a straw hat, sunglasses, and flip flops had had her jaw wired shut by a team of physicians who had to hold their breath to keep from giggling. Perhaps, it would be a well-needed point of levity in a dark and uncertain time. But that is a risk I am unwilling to take. For now, I must content myself with a YouTube beach scene and leave this chocolate until after the pandemic passes.