A hand-wrapped chocolate is a morsel of affordable decadence.
There's a chocolate shop in town, a family-owned business that's been around since 1919. Every caramel, truffle, creme and turtle they make is hand-dipped, rolled, and wrapped. A hand-wrapped chocolate is a morsel of affordable decadence, enhanced by the "peel me a grape" hedonism of a waxed-paper wrapper. Especially when you're a person who associates individually wrapped candies with Starbursts or Kraft caramels.
The individually wrapped bonbons remind me of the conveyor-belt candies in the classic I Love Lucy episode, Job Switching.
In a storyline that was to be repeated by countless other shows, Lucy and Ethel bet husbands Ricky and Fred that earning money is easier than housework. The episode is pure comedy gold, with moments like Ricky's disastrous attempt to cook chicken and rice. When my mom and I first watched the show together, she told me she and Grandma "screamed with laughter" when they first watched Job Switching in 1952. So the show is an heirloom of sorts in our family, handed down and enjoyed from generation to generation.
Here's the sweetest thing about Job Switching. It represented a time when America had a thriving manufacturing base -- when an unskilled housewife could waltz in off the street and land a job, even if for one day.