You see, every year on February 1 a mysterious Chocolate Bandit comes in the middle of the night and leaves chocolate treats for me and my daughter. I don’t know if he visits anyone else. I selfishly hope not, because I love him passionately.

I usually make the mistake of expressing my enthusiasm openly which makes Dave jealous. I point out that he doesn’t need to be jealous. He is perfectly free to one up the chocolate bandit and give me even fancier chocolate any time he likes. I also accept cheese. He grumbles.

Then, on Valentine’s Day there is more chocolate (this year, Ferro Rocher) and a card where Dave reveals that HE’S the chocolate bandit! I’m always extremely suspicious of this claim. A girl can never get enough romantic mystery in her life. 

I especially love the chocolate bandit because Valentines Day always arrives when we are at our most broke and have the lowest energy of the year. The chocolate perks me up wonderfully, but nothing can completely compensate for the dreariness of February. Usually, when the big day finally rolls around, we go out for dinner and call it a holiday.

But this year, probably because of the weird absence of winter, we did better. Or at least I thought we had until I realized that the adventures we planned were both solitary. Oops.

First, we went to the romantic Machu Picchu. Or at least the virtual version of it. Unlike my personal VR set, I could move around fairly freely. The rule is that you must stay between the yellow lines. No problem! One of the lines bordered the edge of an ancient terrace with a drop off thousands of feet. I couldn’t exactly see Dave, only a very fit looking outline. He would have approved. The program comes with a virtual guide who zooms around and tells you about what you are seeing. The whole thing lasts about an hour. We both felt that it was a little overpriced but liked it well enough that when they bring the next experience (Egypt) we’ll probably go again. 

Our next adventure was to go to the True Rest Float Spa in Draper, despite the fact that “True Rest” struck us as a great name for a cemetery. Here, each person has a private room with a bench, shower and a giant egg filled with 10 inches of water and thousands of pounds of salt. You can leave the doors of the egg open or closed, have music or not. Then you simply float for an hour.

Usually, I’m much too squirrley to just lie around doing nothing, but this was different. I felt as though I were in space, then a leaf floating lazily downstream. I also felt as though I was back in the womb. I wondered if that was a weird thing to feel, and decided that no, given the circumstances I could hardly miss the metaphor, so I enjoyed it. I realized that I probably gave my poor mother a lot of trouble because I liked bouncing around the walls of the egg.

After an hour, music lets you know your time is up. After you shower, etc. You can lounge in the “Oasis” sipping tea for as long as you like. Definitely worth trying at least once.

So, I was feeling great about Valentines until the other night when I mentioned that the chocolate bandit had done especially well this year with the Ferro Rocher. Then Dave says casually,

 ”Yeah, I recycled that from Christmas.”

“WHAT??!!!”

“Come on, I bet you didn’t even notice.”

“That’s not the point! The Chocolate Bandit does NOT give used candy!”

“It wasn’t used; it was brand new. Look at this.” and then he proceeds to point out the huge bowl of chocolate in the hallway, and also the pantry which is overflowing with chocolate — as though any of that were relevant.

“You don’t need more chocolate.”

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.