Aug 26, 2013 3 min read

So, a strange thing happened the other day. I went to take a shower and discovered something in the tub. Now this, in and of itself, is not strange – in the past, I have showered with an odd assortment of toy tractors, stuffed animals and even coins – but it is less often that I shower with dinner glasses.

To make matters more interesting, the glass was half full (or half empty, if you are a pessimist) of water. In addition to the water, the glass contained a large handful of somewhat melted chocolate chips.

While it is also not overly strange to find food in my bathroom (I’m personally not a fan of eating in there, but to each his own), it is normally a phenomenon perpetuated by my son. He, however, has a dairy allergy and avoids it when at all possible, so I couldn’t see him getting into chocolate of any kind. Further, it really just didn’t seem like something either of my girls would have done, but I asked them anyway.

As is usually the case when there is a possibility of getting into trouble, no one claimed responsibility.

A few days later, I got a text message from my eldest daughter, who was at soccer practice. “Could you please find out which of my dear siblings put chocolate chips into my water bottle,” it said.

Again with the chocolate chips? But at least I had it narrowed down to two children. And, since my son was one of them, and he has the aforementioned allergy, I still couldn’t see him messing with them. So I accused my middle daughter of playing a strange practical joke on the rest of us. She swore up and down that she had done nothing of the sort. Strangely, I believed her.

It was only a day or so later, when I went to the refrigerator to get some water, that I discovered the real perpetrator. I placed my cup under the ice dispenser and pushed the button. Clink, clink, clink, went the ice into the cup. And then, suddenly, out came a chocolate chip.

I quickly jerked open the freezer door and looked inside. There, on the top shelf, was an open bag of the tiny confections. And there, in my ice bin, were several stragglers that had fallen from the bag, just from the movement I had made in opening the door. No one had been placing chips in random places around the house. Someone had simply been sneaking chips from the bag and failed to reseal it.

Riddle solved!

Though, it did lead us to another question. Who had been eating chocolate chips straight from the bag in the freezer? I asked all three of my children that question as well, and guess who had done it?

The world may never know, because no one claimed responsibility for that one, either.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@hughes.net.