Evolutionary responses of chocolate

I'm feeling a pressing need to send someone a gift. I just haven't decided who or what yet.

One running joke amongst my family from years back was that I didn't possess much in the way of plain old common sense. Though I was loath to admit it at the time, there's likely some truth to it, even now. However, I do believe I've been favoured with enough extraneous senses to compensate for those I lack. For instance, I like to think of myself as having an extremely finely honed sense of karma.

Already this week I've received an unexpected gift in the post, much to my great delight, and I've also been warned that an unspecified something else is winding itself towards me. Happenings like these bring me a great sense of happiness, which I consequently feel the need to spread. It's only fair after all. I've already sent out one gift in the past few days, but my karmic scales still feel slightly out of balance, so I've decided to pick upon some other soul out there to bequeath a gift upon. The only question is who to pick on...

Oh, good grief. I completely forgot to send a thank you gift that I'd intended a couple of weeks back. D'oh. That explains the karmic imbalance then. Still better late than never I suppose. There. It's done, thanks to the joys of online shopping. Alas, it's for people who don't number amongst my readership. So the rest of you are spared...

This time.

Speaking of chocolate (which I wasn't, but given that's what I just sent out I may as well - I know it's not the most inspired of gifts, but it's apt for this occasion I promise), someone brought in a box of Quality Street chocolates to work the other day to share. When came my turn I reached in and at random pulled out a blue foil wrapped chocolate that a quick consultation of the supplied index card indicated to be a coconut eclair. For those of you unaware of the grand British tradition that is Quality Street, or indeed it's main rival Roses, these are boxes containing a variety of chocolates about 10% of which nobody actually likes, such as the aforementioned coconut eclair or it's counterpart in crime, the dreaded coffee cream. However, as I perused further I discovered that, no, it was not a coconut eclair, but was rather an infinitely more edible hazelnut eclair. However, their wrappings were undeniably similar in style and colour.

Naturally I began to theorise that these particular chocolates were emulating the survival stratagem often seen in nature where an animal, insect or bird that would otherwise make a tempting morsel for a predator evolves to mimic the appearance of another more fearsome/less edible creature. It's obvious when you think about it. Strangely, no-one else seem to take my theory seriously.

But I'll show them!