I made myself some hot chocolate today. I used almond milk and a carton of fancy-pants fair-trade organic drinking chocolate. It’s not even plain old pedestrian hot chocolate. I dutifully heated the almond milk and whisked in the powder. And I drank half the cup and realized that I wasn’t really enjoying it. And the reason why the container of it has been kicking around for so long is because I’ve never really enjoyed it. But I felt like I *should* enjoy it, and it was a secret Santa gift from a while ago so I should enjoy it in honour of the person who gave it to me. And yet, I don’t enjoy it. I just drink it and continue to not enjoy it.  *sigh*. It’s like the decidedly not-fancy arena hot chocolate. Good thing arena fries are there to pick up the slack.

Mmm…. arena fries. But I digress.

I did this with wine for the longest time, too. My family are hardcore red wine drinkers, but I don’t love the heavy tannin-y thing that the Amarone and Valpocellas bring to the table, or that terroir-y thing that happens in a bottle of Shiraz. But I drank it because We Are Wine Drinkers. Then one day, someone brought me a bottle of Baco Noir. And that was it – I found the wine that I actually enjoyed drinking. You’ll recall the Day Drinking with Dad tour that I did in the summer to go and get many bottles of Baco Noir from many wineries the Niagara area. It was a fun day, and I regret buying none of those bottles. Good times.

I know, I know, there’s definitely some psychological unboxing required for my beverage obligation issues. At least I figured it out with the wine. That’s hopeful, right?

My hot chocolate misadventure has made me think about the other things I do for goofy reasons. I mean, Mike and I collectively decided last year that we don’t enjoy squash enough to ever order it in our vegetable delivery. But if we miss the deadline to change the offerings they suggest in any given week, and we end up with a squash, we’ll figure it out. Read: We don’t like it enough to order it on purpose, but we don’t dislike it enough to put it on the veto veggies list. Or maybe we do. I don’t miss that deadline very often, but there is an acorn squash that’s been sitting on my counter for a while…

There aren’t too many things I don’t eat – Tilapia (because it tastes like musty basement), turnips (except those amazing pink pickled turnips that you get on your falaffel), dates (and the resulting date-based granola bars and pastries). There are certainly things I don’t prefer (like barbecue sauce, oddly, and the thing that my gentleman associate calls “shepherd’s pie”.  I’m sorry, dry ground beef, plain canned corn, and mashed potatoes is *not* shepherd’s pie. It’s maybe *almost* shepherd’s pie, but no, definitely not shepherds pie). But as I’m the primary shopper and meal-planner in my house, I can easily skate around these things.

So, as I regard my pantry with an eye to what ingredients I can use up making Christmas treats in the next month, I’m also taking note of things that we avoid in there. Like this fancypants drinking chocolate. I put the tin away after I made my cup earlier. But then I said to myself,” Self, we’re going to do a solid for future-us” And I took the cocoa by the horns and got rid of it.

Life’s too short to drink yucky hot chocolate.