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.
