Thursday, 24 January 2002 | Mystery dust

For some reason, whenever I pour the mystery dust into my mug to "make" hot chocolate, my brain short circuits and tells my body to fill the mug up to the top with that pretty brown powder, as if my mug is some sort of measuring cup and my goal is to smooth it off at the top. Only when the mug is three-fourths full do I realize that I'm making a horrible mistake and I stop pouring. I'm left, then, with a mug full of dark sugar punctuated with little cubes of white sugar, faced with the decision whether to pour the mug's contents back into the container, pour it into the trash, or pour a small amount of hot water on top of it and stir for an extra minute or two. I swear I don't do it on purpose, but it does taste surprisingly good that way.