A Candidate's Best Friend: Chocolate-Covered Pistachios

Thank you for your service, Trader Joe's

It’s the Day Before Election Day, and just like you I’m worried, excited, anxious, optimistic, superstitious, and exhausted. Throw in my own campaign for re-election and that intensifies things even more. So, let’s be real here today. We’re all hanging by a thread, collectively: what was it that kept you hanging on?

I have a plethora of people to thank for helping on my campaign, as always: my family, friends, neighbors, donors, everyone who knocked doors, carried my lit, put my signs in their yard. But the biggest, most heartfelt thank you goes to…the chocolate-covered pistachios from Trader Joe’s, a stressed-out candidate’s best friend.

Look, we all have coping mechanisms when we’re under stress. And the entire country has been under stress! “Whatever gets you through the night” is my no judgements motto. Well, these lil’ buggers got me through and then some.

I remember at the start of the lockdown, we really got into the Pub Cheese from Trader Joe’s. We ate so much of it and so often that I changed the name to Couch Cheese, because that is where we would eat it—the whole fam snugged up on the couch watching a movie, dipping pretzels into cheese. But as the lockdown wore on and on and our standards lowered and lowered, I had to change the name of the cheese again, this time to Bed Cheese, for reasons I’m assuming you can deduce. I will not be shamed for this! After guiding four kids through e-learning while also working from home ourselves, the fact that Pub Cheese was the hardest substance my husband and I overindulged in at the end of the day continues to be a point of pride for both of us.

This election season has been the worst rerun, reboot, regurgitation of the past eight years—the sequels absolutely no one asked for. It feels like there has been a rip in the fabric of the time-space continuum and we’ve been caught in some hideous loop of campaign/election mode forever, and we’ve all had to find ways to cope with the constant onslaught of madness. But finally, blessedly, it all ends this week. (Say it with me: we’re not going back!)

So yeah, more about these chocolate-covered pistachios. Now, this confession isn’t me at my finest hour, but it IS me at my most real. I discovered these tiny pebbles of joy last year and included them on summer charcuterie boards. Super cute! And delicious! They were a nice little surprise sweet treat amongst the savory.

But then, they started creeping closer and closer to the main event. No longer content to sit on the edges of the board, they moved towards the middle, eventually claiming center stage. And then they decided they didn’t need no damn cheese or crackers getting in their way: they insisted on being consumed alone, on their own. At first, I’d pour them into a little dish--very demure, very mindful.

Let me be clear--we all enjoyed them, it wasn’t just me. I discovered a cute hack, where I’d store them in the fridge, so they were cool bursts of nutty chocolate on a hot summer day. But this election season…it just wouldn’t end. November 5^th was like a shimmering mirage in the distance, but no matter how much time passed on the calendar, Election Day stayed the same distance away. And pretty soon, I found I was eating them straight out of the bag, just me, not even sharing anymore.

I knew I was in trouble as they moved from the “enjoy in moderation” category to a full-on medicinal political crutch. I crossed the forbidden Rubicon, the final frontier, the boundary that should never be breeched: I brought them upstairs to my bedroom.

Yes, that’s right. I made it through this campaign season with a bag of chocolate-covered pistachios on my nightstand. At all times.

TV also became a lovely campaign crutch to me: I hardly ever watch TV but we found “our shows” and sometimes, when the news was so grim, the timeline so dark, I would inevitably get to a point during the day where I would think, “Okay, sure, so this is horrible, yes, but there’s a new episode of ‘Bad Monkey’ (or, ‘Somebody, Somewhere’ or ‘Emily in Paris’ or ‘Only Murders in the Building’ etc., etc.) that drops tonight and I just got a fresh bag of chocolate-covered pistachios-- I can do this!”

In bed we would sit, my husband and I propped up on our pillows with our pets lying on our feet, watching our shows and having our Bed Snacks. I thought if I came up with a cutesy name like “bed snacks” it would lessen the stigma of eating chocolate in bed as a coping mechanism. Turns out, it didn’t! But by that point I no longer cared, insert shrug emoji here.

As election season wore on (and on), I sunk even lower, I’m afraid. Eventually, with the polls freaking the hell out of me, I no longer ate them sitting up in bed. I actually ate them lying down, head fully on the pillow and hand in the bag, all pretenses of civility gone, poof. Look what the looming threat of fascism did to me, to us all—election stress is real!

My husband is more of a straight up plain pretzels and a bit of bourbon guy, so that’s what he brought up to bed for our nightly ritual. (Why yes, I am violating our marriage vows and dragging him down with me, I refuse to be the only one whose coping mechanisms are subject to scrutiny, even if it is self-inflicted.) All I can say is thank goodness my other coping mechanisms include logging miles and miles and miles of walking, both canvassing and just walking for exericise with my dog, my husband, my friends. I’d like to think it all evened out??

Anyway, I just wanted to give a shoutout to the deliciousness of my coping mechanism, my beloved Trader Joe’s chocolate-covered pistachios. I have a feeling I may never be able to eat them again after this election cycle for fear of relapsing or triggering a PTSD response to these dark times we are (hopefully) escaping. I bid a fond farewell and a heartfelt goodbye to my little chocolate-covered friends, you truly were beacons of joy, a lighthouse guiding me to safer shores, a sweet indulgence during the most bitter of times. From the bottom of my heart and my stomach, I thank you for your service.  

And yeah, yeah, I know it ain’t over till the Fat Man sings, so guess what I’m stocking up on later today? And consider this your final reminder: GO VOTE YOUR ASS OFF!