(I wrote this over a year ago when I was still recovering from the loss of my wife. It made me laugh so I hope you do, too. Sorry for mixing my metaphors.)
For almost 40 years I ate vanilla ice cream. And I loved it. And I got to eat as much as I wanted. It may not have been the instant I was hungry but all I had to say was, “Ice cream, when you can spare 5 minutes, I’d like some ice cream” and I’d get the ice cream. And for 40 years, I never had to lick my own cone!
In the past I thought I’d maybe like to try a different flavor with vanilla; you know, two scoops. But vanilla was a single scoop flavor only. Vanilla made that perfectly clear. Vanilla was extremely jealous of all the other flavors of ice cream. It was Vanilla or nothing.
However, every once in a while I might get vanilla ice cream with sprinkles or maybe a cherry on top. So, I was very happy eating only vanilla ice cream.
And I took really good care of that vanilla ice cream. I made sure it was always the right temperature and that it was always stored safely. It was the most important thing in my life.
But now that store has closed. I was sad for a long time. But lately I’ve been starting to think about ice cream again. Man, there are so many different flavors of ice cream out there.
And so many different qualities. There’s a lot of old, stale ice cream. There’s some really fine aged ice cream. And there’s a lot of young fresh ice cream. If you’re someone who likes that really young fresh ice cream, make sure it’s at least 18 years old!
But there’s a problem. You can’t just walk into any ice cream store and buy some. All those other flavors of ice cream are locked up! With a combination lock. And you have no idea how many digits are in the combination or which way to turn the lock.
And the lock is very sensitive. You can be trying various numbers and you touch the lock wrong or you say the wrong thing. The lock will just freeze up. You can’t turn it any more. It won’t budge! Might as well go and lick your own cone!
What can a guy do?
Now, you can check the internet. There’s lots of people who will tell you they have the universal combination to unlock any ice cream lock, guaranteed…for a small fee, of course. Buyer beware.
And even more frustrating is if the ice cream even thinks that all you want is ice cream, well, forget it! That lock won’t budge. The only way to play with the lock is to make it seem like you are not interested in ice cream in the least.
Another problem with today’s ice cream is you have no idea how much it costs. There are no prices on the ice cream. I got lucky, my Vanilla ice cream didn’t cost a lot. It wasn’t that fancy French vanilla ice cream. In fact, the price went down the more vanilla ice cream I ate. I was content to pay the price.
With inflation these days you might have to go into debt to eat certain flavors of ice cream. It might be cheaper if you could just go to a store and pay cash for ice cream on the spot. But I hear those stores are hard to find and you never know the quality of ice cream you’ll get. Still, it’s better than licking your own cone.
But, man, there are so many flavors, it’s worth fooling around with ice cream. I’m not even sure if I can love ice cream like I did before. I’m not sure I can settle on one new flavor.
In 40 years, I never had to lick my own cone. And I haven’t yet. It’s not a good habit for a man to get into. But I’m disciplined and I’m patient and I really enjoy playing with ice cream. Just going with the flow. Who knows, I may get lucky again and find a new flavor of ice cream to love.
