About chocolate and nothing at all

If you worked here, you’d soon realise that we are creatures of habit and our habits serve us well. The first coffee of the day, for instance – Iain, Gemma and I slouch to the kitchen, all unable to believe that the evening ran out and left us standing here. My colleague Phil is back in the office having broken his leg and been stuck at home for weeks. I take his cup and Iain opens the door so he can clank through it on his unwieldy crutches like a chubby AT-AT walker.

Lunch happens as close to noon as it is physically possible to get. We’ve been known to be seated at 12:01. Iain and I make our own sandwiches – he has a particular fondness for ham or cheese with iceberg lettuce. He flirted with pate for a while but I think he’s over it now. Gemma, however, is the lunch envy supremo. She brings in leftover jambalaya, home made pasta salads rich with pesto and cherry tomatoes, risottos. On the days when we have failed to make lunch and have to brave the canteen this is especially hard to watch. Sarah, on the other hand, always takes her chances there (Reggie chicken, a label proudly boasted on an especially anaemic looking wrap yesterday). Back when she was pregnant she would always have a sandwich, a salad and a hot pudding and get through the lot. Now she’s back from maternity leave she still does, all the time complaining about how awful it is.

“Do you mind if I open your Twiglets?” says Sarah to me.

“No, go for your life.” I reply.

Sarah always asks and I always let her. Because we’re creatures of habit, and our habits serve us well.

But lately, in the afternoon, there has been an interloper.

We go to the kitchen for our afternoon coffee around 3pm. Recently, when Iain and I have finished making our drinks, we turn round to find something new and unfamiliar sitting on the work surface by Gemma’s bottle of water. It’s a small bar of chocolate called an Echo, no longer or thicker than your index finger. They sell them in packs of eight at the supermarket. It’s the perfect size for an afternoon break, to keep you from flagging in the long wait between an early lunch and dinner.

It’s cheating is what it is. Nobody else does this. The home-made lunches are one thing, but this is a step too far. It had never occurred to me to buy one, but now there is one in the kitchen it somehow represents the foresight I haven’t got. I didn’t want one until I knew it was there, and suddenly supper time seems awfully far away. Gemma doesn’t offer to share. In fairness, it isn’t big enough.

On Wednesday, Gemma materialises at my desk around three o’clock.

”Fancy coming to the vending machine to get some chocolate?”

This, too, is new. And normally I would say no because that isn’t part of the plan and I eat too much chocolate anyway. But on this occasion I weaken and it’s all because of that bloody Echo bar. I offer to buy Phil a bar of chocolate too, to cheer him up. This is the triumph of hope over experience – Phil is a lugubrious fellow at the best of times. With two crutches leaning precariously against the faded wheely chair next to him and an operation looming to take the pins out, it would take a chocolate bar the size of a cruise ship to lift his spirits.

“Yeah mate, anything you like, I’m not fussy.” comes the response.

Happy to be away from our desks Gemma and I weave our way through the labyrinth of beige corridors and down the stairs. There are whole rooms in this office full of people we have never met. I have no idea what they do, and if they’re anything like me they may have no idea either. Eventually we arrive at the overpriced vending machine, dimly lit and humming with malevolent energy.

The first step is to rule out anything which, on the balance of probabilities, is unlikely to come out. Have you seen vending machines like this? You pick something, you put your money in and punch the buttons and the metal spiral turns uselessly, leaving your bounty (or your Bounty) much closer to the edge but without toppling in. No feeling is quite so frustrating.

This exercise excludes a rogue Galaxy Caramel. But the Twirl and the Wispa Gold are both within reach – and both are shocking value at 65p. I don’t know which one Phil wants, so I buy one of each and we climb the stairs.

“Phil’s definitely going to want the Twirl.” says Gemma.

“No he isn’t.” I say. “Wispa Gold is amazing, I think it’s laced with crack. I bet you he’ll pick the Wispa Gold.”

“All right. Let’s bet on it. Whoever loses has to buy the next chocolate bar for the winner.”

Later I sit at my desk looking ruefully at my Wispa Gold. The two chocolate bars cost me £1.30. The cost of buying the next bar for Gemma will be another 65p. Plus I’ll have to buy something for myself. So this solitary bar has ended up costing me £2.60. Wispa Gold? It might as well be made of gold. It tastes good, but not that good, and it lasts less than a minute. All this because of that sodding Echo bar.

A solitary chocolate bar on a work surface making me want things I haven’t got. Spur of the moment decisions, bad bets and unintended consequences. A better writer than me would be able to make this mean something, say something somehow bigger than all these isolated moments joined up in a wayward line. Or maybe a worse writer would try.