Ice cream or health food? Rachel straightens me out.

 

Eating celery at Baskin Robbins

I'm at a local ice cream parlor with Rachel. Since it is Sunday you can probably guess what I'm having, right?

Yep! You nailed it... I'm having celery, once again. A big, crisp stalk of celery. Oh man it is a tasty treat! It's weird because a lot of people didn't even know that they offer celery at Baskin-Robbins.

(By the way... pay no attention to the ice cream cone you see in the photo.)

Tension At Culver's

A group of us were eating lunch at Culver’s after church, yesterday afternoon. 

Suddenly, we heard a commotion coming from the check-out counter. An irate customer was yelling and making a scene. The yelling continued. It was loud enough and angry enough that many of us customers in the seating area of the restaurant were looking around, whispering and wondering if this was possibly going to escalate into something more than just a verbal tirade.

Before long a police car pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and then another police car arrived, as well.

At a certain point the uncomfortable incident seemed to be over. Although I could not see the entire check-out counter area from my seat I’m fairly certain the tense encounter never advanced to any type of physical level. And, fortunately, the irate customer left without the police having to intervene.

A few moments later a very sweet young woman who works for the restaurant came around to our table with a handful of blue tokens.

She was smiling but she also seemed concerned and a bit unnerved. She said, “We are so sorry for the disturbance that happened. Please accept these tokens for a free scoop of ice cream with our apologies for the disruption in your dining experience.”

The folks from our group very quickly responded saying, “No, that’s alright. We understand things can happen. We’re fine.”

A couple of my friends attempted to put her at ease. We understood she was in no way at fault.

I said, “I’m not upset but I will take one of those tokens for the free ice cream, however.”

And everyone laughed. That broke the slight tension of the moment. And then a bunch of other folks took the tokens for free ice cream, too.

Hey, this is a pretty good rule of thumb: Even in a tense situation you should not turn down free ice cream.

The Dip Cone Adventure

I walked into a fast food restaurant and said, “Do you have dip cones?”

(Dip cones are vanilla, soft serve ice cream cones which have been dipped in a chocolate sauce which then becomes a hard chocolate shell. This is something God has allowed in the world simply to be nice to punks like me.)

The woman behind the counter said, “Yes we do.”

I said, “I’ll have a dip cone.”

I paid and then the woman behind the counter turned to a young man who was standing behind her and said, “Would you make the dip cone, please? I can never do those properly. They always fall apart on me.”

The young man turned and walked away without saying anything.

Then I waited and waited.

…And then I waited a little more.

Other customers were coming and going. The workers behind the counter were chatting and laughing but were not dealing with my order. I didn’t see the young man who was asked to get the dip cone.

I began to wonder if my order had fallen through the cracks and been forgotten about.

I waited some more.

Finally, the young man came from behind a wall with a dip cone. He looked at me, held out the cone, and said, “Here you go. And if you will hold on a minute and I’ll get your other cone.”

I said, “Other cone? I only ordered one cone.”

At this point a handful of workers all turned and looked our way. Their faces seemed to say, “What kind of horrific mistake has occurred here at this sacred place!?!”

I quickly said, “It’s okay. I just ordered one cone and I’ve gotten my one cone. Everything is fine.”

The manager was standing nearby, the crew looked at her and she nodded her head toward the others as if to say, “Stand down, folks. We’re all clear.”

I think this is the most dramatic ice cream cone order I’ve ever been a part of and it reminds me of an important truth: Properly dispensing ice cream is not something to be taken lightly.

No Answer From A Politician

A couple of hours ago I watched a politician respond to two back-to-back “yes or no” questions with long, rambling, meaningless statements. In fact, about 25 seconds into each comment my eyes began to glaze over and I could no longer tell what the heck she was talking about nor could I remember the question.

The response to each of the inquiries probably went on for close to a minute and yet despite all the talking she never actually answered either of the simple questions.

By the way, this politician is not one of the people running for president in either party. This person was merely giving her opinion about some softball political questions. There was absolutely no reason to hide anything or be evasive. She could have answered either question with yes or no and it would not have been a big deal. They were not “gotcha” questions meant to trap or embarrass her.

In a way this is fairly amusing. In fact, I laughed and yelled at the television when it was happening. But this is also part of the problem.

Most long-time politicians (like this person) have been so overly coached by advisors to be evasive, indirect and obscure when it comes to statements to the press that they have lost the ability to communicate in plain, simple, understandable ways.

It went something like this… Question: Do you like ice cream?

Answer: Well you know, ice cream is something we’ve been thinking about and studying carefully and we’re excited about the possibilities that are evolving in the field of ice cream these days. Of course, ice cream can be eaten in a cone or without a cone but there is no conclusive research available, at this point in time, about either method. Both have a reputation for being quite tasty. I’m out and about listening to the people and we are getting ready to present some findings one of these days. This will be far into the future when people have completely forgotten what this issue is all about, most people on earth have become comatose and frozen yogurt has become the topic of the day. However, we remain firmly committed to the good, ice cream eating people of this country…  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!

[Deep sigh…]

Since people in both political parties do this I do not consider it to be a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. I think it is, to some extent, inherent in politics. It is known and understood that this is how you play the game.

NOTE:  Wow, I just took a moment to re-read this piece before posting it. LOL! We are this early in a long election cycle and the politicians are already getting me irritated. I’m going to need to take some deep breaths, count to ten and relax, huh?

Late Night Ice Cream Run

After the Wednesday night service a couple of folks said, “Hey Dan, we’re going to go get some ice cream.  You want to come?”

I laughed and said, “Get out of here!  There’s no way that people will go out and eat ice cream at 8:30 at night.”  I chuckled a little bit more at the absurdity of such an idea.  Then I said, “We are a society that is incredibly health conscious.  We are constantly thinking about eating in nutritional ways and maintaining our six-pack abs. [My own six-pack abs defy description…so to speak.]  This talk of a late evening ice cream adventure truly cracks me up!”

Then, still laughing, I held my hand up for a high five.  But the folks I was talking with had already left the room.

…Anyhow, this photo was taken at Baskin Robbins at about 8:45 this evening.

Free Pie Night And The Exercise of Discipline

A group of friends went out for Free Pie Night at Bakers Square after the Bible study at church this evening.  They know I’m not supposed to be eating pie late at night and yet they tempted me, anyhow.

“Mmm, this pie is delicious!!!” they said as they scooped large forkfuls into their mouths.

One person commented, “I have extra ice cream.”

“You know, Dan,” he continued, “It’s hard to describe how delicious it is because words are inadequate to depict all this yummy goodness!”

Yes, I admit that I was tempted.  After all, I’m human.  But I simply continued to sip my water and secretly do abdominal exercises in my chair.

“Discipline is its own reward,” I reminded myself as I smiled with life-affirming, inner satisfaction.

P.S.  It is late and there is a very slight chance I’m not remembering this exactly the way it happened.  But the account described above is pretty close.  Well, let me just assure you that this part is for sure:  I only had water.

P.P.S.  Did I mention that I really dislike water?