It had been a long day, and I was famished. I’d flown to New York the previous night, and the plane was delayed three times. I walked into my hotel room at 1:00 a.m. After five hours of sleep, I woke to prepare for my midday speech. Between the event itself and chatting with attendees afterwards, I didn’t have time for much lunch, but I was too busy to worry about it. I zipped back to the airport, caught a shuttle to Washington, raced across town to the elegant dinner venue, and changed from my suit into my tuxedo.
My stomach was growling audibly, angry that I’d neglected it all day. I thought about making a dash for the hors d’oeuvres as a peace offering, but since I was helping to emcee the dinner, the more urgent priority was giving my scripts a quick once-over before I had to read from them in front of a packed audience.
As the dinner started, I chatted with my tablemates, worried that the sounds from my gut were noticeable even above the din of the servers. I scarfed down the petite salad in front of me and looked in vain for any sign of the entrees. Just as I began to contemplate stealing the salad from the tardy seatmate next to me, I spied a small cardboard box sitting at the top of my place setting. Perfect—a post-dinner chocolate would be just enough to get me to the main course.
After opening the box and setting aside the folded white paper describing the contents—I was going to eat it whether it was a raspberry-filled bonbon or a crème brûlée truffle—I unwrapped a perfect circle of cocoa temptation: light brown on the outside, with a dark coffee-bean-shaped center. Drooling like an English bulldog, I popped it in and waited for the soft explosion of mocha and some relief from my hunger pangs.
Instead . . . crunch. It was hard, gritty. This chocolate was really old.
I kept chewing, optimistically, hoping that might soften things up and waiting for a hint of chocolate that never came. It was then that I realized whatever I was grinding down was not, in fact, chocolate. I grabbed a napkin and tried to expel this substance—the consistency was that of wet cement—without making a scene. Some of the sludge that wasn’t caked on my teeth and gums was making its way slowly down my esophagus, triggering a gag reflex, while the rest of it was oozing, lava-like, out of the cracks of my poorly sealed lips.
I was due onstage at any moment, but couldn’t have spoken if called upon. So I sprinted towards the bathroom, snatching a half-finished bottle of water from a table near the bar. I took a swig but couldn’t swallow, so I grabbed a nearby garbage can—one hand on each side—and plunged my head deep into the container, spitting furiously.
Moments later, this scene replayed itself in a stall of an otherwise empty bathroom. The white porcelain was spattered with a brown, mud-like material—too dirty to leave to the cleaning crew. When I opened the door of the stall to fetch some wet paper towels, a startled man looked first at the toilet, then at me, at the toilet once again, and then, with eyes bulging in a look of horror and disgust I’ve never before seen, one more time at me. I paused for a moment to imagine what he must have thought I was doing and briefly considered offering an explanation. But not yet knowing enough myself to offer that explanation, I simply gave him a smile and a shrug.
When I returned to the table after being gone for 10 minutes, my tablemates showed no alarm or concern. The white piece of paper I’d tossed aside moments earlier confirmed my fears. “This candy is for planting—not for eating.” I read on. I’d eaten something called a “Garden Bon Bon.” It was meant to look like a fine chocolate. The light brown outside was hardened clay; the dark center was a large seed that, when used in the intended manner, would grow to produce an oregano Origanum vulgare plant.
Seconds later, I was summoned backstage for my presentation, the residue of my earthen snack still spread throughout my mouth. I asked Brent Bozell, the host that evening, to perform a quick teeth-check to make sure that at least my front teeth were clean. When I confessed what I’d done, he doubled over, convulsing with laughter, and summoned the event-planners to let them in on the joke. They, too, laughed and then one of them offered a confession of her own: It had occurred to them that one of their guests might mistakenly eat the clay treat.
“We wondered who would be dumb enough to eat one of those without checking the box,” she said.
I made that up. While that was no doubt what she was thinking, she said nothing at all to make me feel stupid and she was quite concerned that I might feel sick. Sweet, really.
Unlike the bonbon.
