The Pilver

Ok, so it’s the third of September. I missed a couple days. This week is literal insanity here in the Minneapolis St. Paul area because of the Republican convention. Just today, I spoke with a secret service man who informed me I could not walk on that side of the street, I had to walk on the other side. “But my car is on this side,” I said. “Take the sky ways,” he ordered me.

He probably was not interested int he problem of me getting lost in the sky ways or feeling the need to stop and look at the shops. I did make it to my car, to be greeted by two lovely young men dressed in fatigues as though a war might just break out in the parking garage.

The convention has brought my restaurant much business, but it had interfered with my ritual enjoyment of the end of August, and the beginning of The Greatest Four Months of the Year. So, I bought self-heating hot chocolate.

I had promised my son a treat for the end of the first day of school. He chose Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows. I am not going to tell you about Swiss Miss. I am going to tell you about Hillside Hot Cocoa.

It was sitting there right next to the Nestle’s Quick or whatever it is called nowadays. A somewhat bulky cup of cocoa, with the promise that I could drink it whenever. Funky food with a gimmick might as well just jump into my plastic basket at the store on it’s own, cause it’s going to end up there anyway.

Hillside Hot Cocoa. Drink this on the side of the hill? This drink tastes like a dirty hill? Both?

The directions were simple: take off the foil bottom

Push the button:

Turn over and lay on a flat surface, for 5-8 minutes, until beverage gets hot.

You will know it is hot because the pink dot turns white.

This is what the dot looked like before and after pushing the botton. But, the time had passed, so I popped the lid, pretending it was a brewskie and I had just labored in the coal mines all day and was in disgusting need of refreshment. Not really, but it make a good beer cracking sound.

It was tongue burning hell bound hot! I set the cocoa down for a few more minutes and sipped it carefully after that. Not bad. Sort of like a better version of gas station push-button cocoa. The thing that impressed me as well as simultaneously scaring me was that something…inside that container…that I was sipping from… caused a drink to heat up by itself. It was a nuclear reaction in my hypochondria mind at that moment and I was about to grow a lip on my forearm.

So, i poured the rest of the drink down the sink and took devil-cup down to the garbage.

Overall I give Hillside Self heating Cocoa a thumbs-up, but only if the test results come back negative.