Man Eater

Last year a friend of mine went to Vegas and brought back a chocolate man for me- as a joke. We all had a good laugh. I decided I would put him away and save him for a special occasion... like Valentine's Day.

You all know I don't have anything against Valentine's Day. Terminally single or not, I still celebrate it- even if it's watching chick flicks and eating pie at home by myself. I like Valentine's Day.

Anyway, as the holiday approached, I told my coworkers I was going to bring a chocolate man to work for us to all share on Valentine's Day. Why not? It's funny.

So my coworker, Lisa has this friend, and he was asking her her plans for Valentine's Day. "I'm not doing anything," she explained. "I have to work and then I have school so I won't have time... Oh, but my coworker is going to bring a chocolate man and we're going to eat him."

I guess this intrigued the friend, (we'll call him A.A. for short) and he inquired as to why we would do such a thing... eating a chocolate effigy of a man? He asked her about her coworker, me, my name and such... doesn't know me. Moving on.

Valentine's Day arrives and I'm at work minding my own business when a flower delivery man arrives with a vase of roses. I'm sitting at the front desk on Valentine's Day- I'm expecting a lot of flowers to be delivered and that I will spend the majority of my day pointing delivery persons in the right direction. But when he stops at my desk and says he's looking for Heather... huh? He must mean another Heather. Baker...? Oh... huh... that's me. They must be from my parents. Who on earth would send me flowers on Valentine's Day?

I took the card. Yup. For me. Weird. When I opened the card to see who sent them, I read:

I was totally baffled. The Chocolate Man? huh? The flower delivery guy also asked if there was a Lisa in the house, when I confirmed, he left for a minute. I told Lisa to come out to the desk. We oooh-ed and aaaah-ed over my pretty flowers and I showed her the card. She knew immediately who sent them. It took me a minute to put two and two together- and then I remembered that her friend AA had grilled her about our Valentine's Day plans and my name. And we had a good laugh.

She was mad for a minute because he'd sent me- a perfect stranger- flowers and not her. I told her to be patient- that he'd not forgotten her. Just then the delivery guy brings in a HUGE bouquet of roses and lilies for her. Seriously gorgeous. I didn't take a picture because, let's face it, this post is about me and I didn't want them outshining my flowers. ha!

He was forgiven after that.

In the meantime, our other coworker, Hida, had text her boyfriend that we were going to eat a chocolate man. I'm not sure if the idea is just offensive to guys...? But he thought it seemed like a bitter, anti-man thing to do.  Which of course made her all the more gung ho to do it!

When lunchtime came (we'd all brought stuff to have a little potluck, just the three of us) we had our lunch and then laid the sacrifice upon his alter (hey, if that's how people are going to see it, it's how I'm going to describe it!)

I didn't care who ate what- I only requested that I eat his head. Haha!
Sorry Chocolate Man, your pretty flowers did not buy your freedom.

The fun twist to the story is that when my friend, Carol gave me the chocolate man last year, she gave him to me the very same day that AA sent Lisa two dozen roses- so it's almost as if AA and the chocolate man had some kind of bond. This is literally the picture I posted last April on Instagram. 

So ends the story of the first time I ever got flowers from a guy. A stranger. As a joke. It still doesn't count.