A Crime Has Been Committed

A crime has been committed in our house.

On the weekend the 12 year old emerged from his room with accusing eyes, demanding answers from the other members of the household.  In his right hand, held aloft like a championship cup, was a purple foiled Cadbury chocolate bunny…………

With no ears.

“Who ate the ears?”  he demanded, as he presented each of us in turn with the bunny (sans ears), watching our responses to his questions.  When it came to my turn, I was equally incensed.  I had questions too. The biggest question being “how had the sneaky bugger managed to keep his chocolate stash hidden since Easter?!”  Easter was months ago!!

Clearly he had hidden his stash well, demonstrating that he has learned something from his mum after all.

How does the old saying go?  Necessity is the mother of invention?  Well clearly as a mother of two children, the necessity is chocolate, and invention is the number of creative hiding spots I have had for said chocolate.  My kids worked out from the moment they were able to climb where it was in the pantry, so I had to be smarter. 

(As an aside, the only chocolate that has ever been in plain sight in my pantry since then are the shiny gold nuggets they call Ferrero Rocher, because nobody wants to eat them.  In fact two members of my family can’t eat them (because, nuts), but that never stopped my father in law gifting them to me from time to time on random birthdays or Easter.  (This is despite the fact that I have been allergic to nuts for 41 years, and part of my husband’s family for 23 of those years).  Thank you for gifting me something that could possibly cause my death.  Or was that the point……)

I have hidden chocolate in a gazillion places, including (but not limited to): the computer desk, in suitcases, in my sock drawer, in my underwear drawer, inside a pillowcase (not ideal during a heatwave of 40plus degrees in Summer), underneath packets of pasta (too noisy to retrieve covertly), behind the dog treats (not recommended; could be dangerous for the dog).

Seriously, when it comes to chocolate, my kids are like airport sniffer dogs.  They will find it.  And if they don’t find it immediately, they will hear you trying to open and consume it.  I have lost count of the amount of times I have nearly choked while covertly trying to inhale a chocolate frog to avoid detection.  The worst is those bastard Flakes.  Do you remember the ad for the Cadbury Flake in the 80s? 

That woman in the white floaty dress and white hat sits delicately on the grass as she unwraps the flake, which doesn’t flick up everywhere all over her as she unwraps it, and then she slowly puts a tiny piece in her mouth as the voiceover sings “Feel it crumble and melt in your mouth”.

Yeah, what a load of false advertising that was.  That Flake will not only crumble in your mouth, it will crumble all over the floor and then you not only have to consume it at the speed of light, you also have to get the bloody vacuum cleaner out and suck up the evidence without being caught.

My only remaining hiding spots are on the shelf behind the cleaning products (yuk, no thanks), or as one good friend ingeniously suggested, in between the recipe books.  (That is where she hides her Haighs chocolate frogs).  Unless you have a budding  junior Masterchef in the house, which I certainly don’t, those frogs are going to be safely hidden for some time.

Anyway, back to the crime.

Obviously I was off the hook pretty quickly as he knew that if I had been aware of the existence of that rabbit, it would be missing more than its ears.  I mean, everyone knows the feet are even better than the ears, so they would have been gone too.  Then I would have had to cover up the crime by disposing of the rest of the evidence.

My money is on the 10 year old, but he is steadfastly refusing to own up.  Perhaps the Easter rabbit mystery will continue…..