It was sober and salads all week. So necessary, too. Summer is great, but everybody has limits. Friday made for a good night to live a little, so, when after the dinner got packed up my wife said, “Ice cream?” it was an easy answer.
We did the thing where we talk about what we’re going to get on the drive over. Not because there was any debate or even any decision to be made, just because she asked me what I’d get, and I asked what she usually gets because that’s what I wanted, and she was measuring my level of serious.
“I get something that sounds fun. You get your same thing. Then you offer me a bite of yours because ‘it’s so good’ - and then I wish I had that. So this time I’m just getting that.” “Makes sense.” “Yeah, I think so, too.”
The parking lot was full but there was only one car in the drive through line. That’s the normal strategy. We drive through then go into the lot next door and eat, usually laughing at passerby’s or whatever new weirdness is in the lot we eat in (it’s deserving of a post of its own).
The pumpkin ice cream is already out, which almost swayed my wife for an 8th of a second after reading it, but she doubled down. “What size do you get?” “Large. And, extra fudge.” “Got it.”
We pull up, order, wait, discuss the pumpkin pie and ice cream Sunday, and laugh about whatever is currently playing on the 20-hour playlist I made while my brother was in town, the one we never got to hang out and listen to, but is comprised of stuff we’d play in the car, or our rooms, or the basement, etc. back when we were teenagers.
The first large banana ice cream with extra hot fudge gets passed from the drive through window, through the car window, across the console, to my wife’s cradling hands, and it’s already melting. It’s like 80 degrees outside and perfect late summer weather, but the soft serve and hot fudge does not want to be frozen anymore and I can see it starting to drip.
The soft serve pull is piled high (like, really high). I’m starting to watch it slosh and drip all over when I grab a fistful of napkins out of the driver’s side door to press into her lap, all while my large banana ice cream with extra hot fudge gets passed to me, which I take with my left hand, do a reach across for more napkins, say thank you, spread them on my lap and look at my wife.
Did I mention this is our new car? It’s our NEW CAR. It survived the 3 nephews at the amusement park last weekend, complete with post-park wet children (towels were applied), and an almost potty-trained mishap in a car seat, without a single blemish. This adult ice cream treat is it’s christening. We both know it. We aren’t going to mention it.
“Oh no, our new car.” She mentioned it. She is - covered - in ice cream. It looks like when you give a toddler ice cream. No joke I look and a giant gob drips and hits the seat, splashing, and more is just pouring over the edge while she tries to use the skinny long plastic spoon. We’re both laughing.
I can’t put up my window because the ice cream is in my left hand and it’s already dripping all over my shorts. I figure shorts are better than the seat and I throw down what’s left of the napkins. I’ve got a roll of paper towels in the trunk, I think, but there’s no time for that with cars queued up behind us and my wife saying, “You just have to drive. Just drive to the lot. You just have to DRIVE, Matt.” “I’m trying - just a little short on hands over here.”
“It’s piled too high. I didn’t recognize that person. I should have known. They never give you this much! This is why I get the bowl. It’s too much on top, it’s going everywhere!”
“You have to inhale it!” That’s my strategy? I only know it as the words come out my mouth and I descend on it. I have fudge and ice cream on my face. My left hand is already coated. “I think I just got some in my hair.” “DRIVE.”
I pull out. Somehow I get the window up. Misterr f***in’ wizard that I am I think the air conditioning might help. I make the two quick turns to get us into our lot. The electronic billboard style sign in the lot is broken and only the first 3rd of any of the businesses is showing. Across the top it says “No Signal. No Signal. No Signal.” It’s pretty funny.
What’s funnier is the scene when I look at my wife who just keeps repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry - oh god, our car” and my response is “you’ve gotta inhale it! Attack it from the top, not the side” and she’s saying, “I’m trying.” “Not with the spoon though - what’s that spoon going to do, you have to just let go of it. My throat has an ice cream headache. There’s this - numb lump.” She’s opened her door and is pouring some of the liquified fudgy banana out. I don’t want to think about the status of her hands.
“The people across the street in the lot are looking at us. They don’t understand what’s going on. We are going to be so sick.” “It’s too late to worry about that, attack!” She closes her door. I think of how my pop-pop used to get about un-ice cream covered fingerprints on the glass inside of the Cadi. A young version of him would be dead. The old version of him would have been laughing as hard as we were.
Sick of It All or maybe Agnostic Front is on which makes the whole scene funnier to me at this point. The tough guy voices while this culinary mosh pit is unraveling. I’m below the top line of my cup and I realize the only clean(ish) finger I have left is my pinky. Val’s cup is still spilling and she’s still apologizing. “Did you notice the sign?” “Oh yeah, right when we pulled in, this place is hysterical.” We both laugh some more.
She gets hers under control and I’ve finished mine which never happens first because I take “little baby bites” courtesy of my sensitive “little baby mouth” which makes her laugh even harder at me. “Your face. It’s all fudge.” “Look, I have one clean finger, I have to try to get those paper towels.” “Where are you going though? Where are you going to put that cup and all those napkins?” “I don’t actually know. I just know I need more napkins or something. There’s a bottle of water in the door, I can start with that to make it so I can touch literally anything.” We laugh harder.
I get the paper towels. I wash my hands in the lot outside of the door. I take our cups, our piles of napkins, I literally am carrying a small dumpster’s worth of disaster in my two hands, and cross the lot, then the street, then the other small lot to the ice cream trash because there is literally no trash can in the busted sign lot we were eating in, probably because of degenerates like us. An older woman with a small cone and terrible bangs is on the bench next to garbage can. She looks at me like I’ve got trash from 16 children and looks away in that polite but shameful way. It’s an appropriate look, because she’s not wrong. I have ice cream all over my shorts too, I remember.
I get back to the car. “Well, that was fun,” Val says. “Friday night. No drinking and I’m still hung over. I skipped the ice cream headache and went straight to hangover. How is that even possible?” “I don’t know but I know what you mean.” “Still. Totally worth it.”
“Your brother never even heard this playlist, right?” “Nah. Never happened.” “Still a fun playlist. I’m enjoying it. If you were 16 you’d write a song about this. Imagine if this was our first date?” “Then there’d totally be a song about this. Fudge Banana Girl or something.” “It’s banana fudge though.” “Yeah, but you have to - you know, do something interesting with it. When we get home, we’re going to have to clean at least some of this up. I don’t want to but I think we have to.” “You’re probably right. And I think I need a bath.” “You’re probably right about that, too.”
