1. You like to dip strawberries, cherries and bananas in chocolate so you start experimenting at dinner with broccoli and cauliflower substituting chocolate for cheese.
2. You buy a bottle of chocolate syrup and carry it around in a small paper bag for a quick nip when you need it.
3. You pour yourself a cup of coffee in the morning and use twelve chocolate spoons. You never touch the coffee.
4. You were delighted to discover that they make a chocolate bar for PMS, so you buy yourself three every month to get you through pre-menstrual, present-menstrual and post-menstrual syndrome.
5. Your significant other buys you a five-pound box of chocolate for Valentines Day and you eat the whole thing in one night. The next morning you try to call in sick, but you cant dial the phone because your sugar levels are so high you cant calm the tremors. So you nurse yourself back to health with little nips from that chocolate syrup bottle.
6. Whenever you see Back-to-school advertisements you drool because you know there will soon be kids at your door selling the Worlds Finest Chocolate bars for a dollar each.
7. When kids come to your house on Halloween you make change by depositing hard candies in their pumpkins and withdrawing Snickers, Crunch, Hersheys and 3 Musketeers bars.
8. Whenever there is a morning meeting scheduled at work you grab a double chocolate monster-sized muffin to go with your cup of cocoa, then sit on the edge of your chair all through the meeting waving your arm calling, Me, me! I know, I know! and they have to call a break so you can walk off some of the effects from all the sugar.
9. You actually call it a hit at three oclock in the afternoon when that chocolate craving strikes and you need it to get through the rest of the day.
10. Youve eaten all twenty-four pieces of chocolate in your advent calendar by December 1st.
11. You think the best after-holiday sales follow Halloween, Valentines Day and Easter.
12. You think Hersheys 65% cacao bars are for rookies and Lindts 85% cacao bars are for professionals.
13. You think its great when you go on a diet and the breakfast bars, snack bars, protein bars, and shakes come in chocolate and youve actually tried diet chocolate-flavored cola.
14. You plan to start a grassroots movement to get the cacao bean listed in the protein section of the food pyramid.
15. You think the woman in the Dove commercial whos satisfied with just one piece of chocolate is faking it.
16. Youve got Chocolate Forever tattooed on you somewhere.
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©Lisa Barker - Jelly Mom is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane... Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Parent To Parent. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!