Chocoholic

take the cake… (1 等)賞を得る

guzzle: eat fast

ridiculous: foolish, stupid

washed-up: 2 《米口語》<人が>しくじった，だめになった，完全に失敗した.

Announcer: More Americans than ever have given up alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods. They’re willing to change almost everything. But you can’t take away their chocolate. Consumption is up 30% over the past decade, and Monday marks the debut of National Chocolate Week. So, what does a real died-in-the-wool chocolate lover look like? Ask ABC’s Cathleen Delasky.

• CD It is early morning at Bill Carter’s farm in Ohio. Bill is making his usual breakfast, peanut butter toast smothered with chocolate chips.
• Bill Oh, it’s delicious. 
• CD Bill Carter is one of a growing number of unabashed chocoholics. He eats it for every meal, and keeps a supply stashed around the house.
• Bill There’s a Hershey bar. That probably ought to be eaten soon.
• CD Bill guzzles M and M’s as he heads over to do volunteer work. His buddies supply his habit. 
• M1 That’s the only way we can get him up here--is to bring chocolate. Otherwise, he won’t even show.
• CD His friends just don’t understand. But now Bill has found what you might call a support group--a place where chocolate addictions are not laughed at, but nurtured. This is a chocolate lover’s convention. These days you can find one almost every weekend somewhere in the country. Bill chose Hershey, Pennsylvania, chocolate Mecca. For four days and nights the Hotel Hershey served up hundreds of variations.
• B You diet before you come and then diet afterwards, and you eat everything in sight here.
• CD This is a place where kids will eat cauliflower; it’s coated with chocolate.
• Kid Yummy, yum, yum, yum.
• CD Even the pasta is brown.
• Cook Cocoa spaghetti. It borders on being a little ridiculous, but anything for the customer.
• CD And the customers love it. They learn to paint with chocolate, sculpt with chocolate, even the air is sweetened by chocolate, undulating in vats at the nearby Hershey’s factory.
• Bill I don’t feel so alone that I’m really a washed-up chocoholic. There are other people that are just as bad, I’m sure.
• CD It’s true, Bill, meet Betty.
• Bet I can be trusted with anything, your money, your children, whatever. But don’t give me a piece of chocolate to hold for you, because I’ll eat it right behind your back.
• CD But Bill certainly takes the cake.
• Bill I get headaches if I don’t eat it. I crave it. I think I dream in chocolate. 
• CD Maybe the whole chocolate convention was one sweet dream. Bill hopes not. Now that he’s met other addicts, he doesn’t feel so guilty eating 11 pounds of chocolate a week. Then we told him the painful truth: the average American eats 11 pounds in a year. 
• Bill Wow. I didn’t realize that. Wow. you ... I feel guilty now.
• CD Cathleen Delasky, Randolph, Ohio.