---

National Truffle Day

Sometimes Urgent News Just Can't Wait

I sustained an advertising email from Lindt, one of my favorite (and, alas, most reviled) chocolate providers. Amid its welter of pictures, blandishments, disclaimers, and reward notices was this:

A Sweet Reason to Stock Up Celebrate National Truffle Day at your local Lindt Chocolate Stores and stock up on your favorite flavors. 100 LINDOR Truffles for $46

Lindt Has Been a Constant Presence in Life and Blog

Not just moths, but plaudits as well. As chocolate is one of my main food groups, I pay more than casual attention to price and quality. It is my great good fortune to have Chocolate as my main vice. Benefits:

• It has no mind- or reflex-altering properties and rarely engenders vehicular accidents or other embarrassments
• Unlike recreational drugs, one is unlikely to consume an LD50's-worth voluntarily,
• Neither is it God's way of suggesting you have too much money, although the more rarefied brands are working on it.

Lindt, in particular and no pun intended, hit the "sweet spot" in the cost/benefit ratio.

HOWEVER, And this is only partially the fault of Lindt, their price has skyrocketed* recently. How high? The implication of the Lindt email is that 100 truffles for $46 is a bargain. But It's Been But a Year Since I committed another Lindt blog, this one about my Easter egg disappointment. I neglected at that time to refer to yet another Lindt blog, this one specifically about the cost of their truffles. And that blog referred to an even earlier one, showing that at least in the past few years the truffle price had not significantly increased! How do we account for the "sale" price increasing about 50% over the non-sale price of two years ago? (I'll let you do the math.) Possibilities include deliberate conspiracy against me, or the astonishing increment in the price of cocoa. I've read recently that growing conditions are improving and the price is retreating. Of course <sarcasm> Lindt will pass along the reduction promptly</sarcasm> and I'll write yet another Lindt blog at that time. Meanwhile, enjoy (or have enjoyed) World Truffle Day!

Business Opportunity

We recently had occasion to enter an emporium of substantial vertical falutation. It sported spotless, polished cabinets in and behind which items of significant cost were arrayed, presumably for the consideration of candidate customers to purchase. I was especially attracted by the small, tasteful dish of wrapped chocolate items invitingly arrayed.** After selecting one (and another and another) I realized that there was no trash can in which to deposit the wrappers!

An enterprising company could manufacture very tasteful trashcans of high falutation themselves, and offer them to similar emporia. This would save embarrassed visitors from either finding a way to temporarily store their wrappers or other detritus rather than offering them to the salestrons for disposal.