Shouldn't…but Do

They keep it in the back room.  To get it, you have to know to ask.  Uncommon, for just those sorts of people with that kind of taste.

They don’t get many of that kind here.   It is an older crowd, with definite…preferences.

Yes, I mean, people like me.  People who like…chocolate ice cream.

Superman, Blue Moon, Moose Tracks – comic book character, atmospheric phenomena and something you want to stay out of.

Without bits of bubblegum, Oreo, caramel, M&M’s or any other adulterating compound – plain chocolate ice cream – no chunks, white chocolate,  marshmallows, nuts or brownie.

Sure, it has been a couple of years since I went out for ice cream, I admit it.  Sometimes customization goes too far:  choice of cone material (waffle, standard cone, sugar cone), choice of cone size (“baby,” medium, large – note insinuation that seekers of regular-sized cones have yet to reach puberty),  choice of serving size (baby nets a single scoop, single earns two scoops, double packs on three scoops plus).  Supersize me – not.

I am bringing up the rear of the Boomer generation and proud of it.  Bell tapping the glass door of the ice cream parlor as it opens, fluorescent lighting, paper soda jerk hats, electric fan, chipped linoleum tables, all hard-serve ice cream – the most exotic of which was Rocky Road – my mother’s favorite.  One cone fits all, drop the scoop, you lose.

Rocky Road.  Yes, I guess.  They say vanilla is back there with the chocolate.  Maybe there is a troll doll hidden somewhere nearby to keep them company.

I used to subscribe to magazines.  These days I get a lot of LAST ISSUE notices.  Have to laugh.  Who knows what the last issue will be?

It happens when I am tired.  I am very tired.  Cognitive language mush, the sloth of trying to pass off some perpendicular word arrangement  that bears only a homeopathic resemblance to the culturally accepted label for an object.

For example, “the thread thing from the stuff,” which, although perfectly clear to no one but me, means the plastic string from the weed trimmer.

Some people fear mushbrain, I find it amusing.  I do not like the fatigue, stress, hormones, or lack of them, that brings it on.

And it is hard to know which is more humorous, the ridiculous description, or the fact that my offspring, without missing a beat,  retrieved the string trimmer spool with no further question.

I do not care for elevators.  They are shifty.  Bad in an emergency.

I am a stairwell person.  Featureless, grimey, flourescent lighting reminescent of middle-of-the-night whereabouts you never admit, even in the day.  But they aren’t shifty.  Good for emergencies.

Stairwells are solid, spent, sometimes blocked – for people who work – out of fear or necessity.

Elevators, mostly sleek, fast, dependant.

Being locked in a stairwell rubs your nose in anguish.  Locked deep inside.  Being trapped in an elevator, skirting panic, forever passing the issue, never reaching.

One elegant, one blunt,  both can deliver, both can trap.  One without effort, one with.  I’ll take it the hard way.