I Scream

My grandfather Al was a fastidious man. He would actually do work on his Colorado mountain cabin in a crisp pair of wool slacks and a pressed dress shirt. It’s why he will always be 100% more cool than I'll ever be.

When Steve and I were little, little tykes, he took us to Baskin Robbins for our first ever ice cream cones. Within 2 minutes of receiving our cones we both licked too heavily, sending the strawberry goodness tumbling to the filthy B&R floor. My five year old memory envisions his head popping off his neck as we wept.

What does this have to do with 2011? Everything.

Halfway through Mother’s Day, I suggested we go to our local ice cream parlor. I think I said, “Hey, no one else in Denver will think if this, given the fact that it’s 80 and sunny!” The ice cream was actually part of an elaborate bribe structure to get Eli to behave at Home Depot.

We arrived at Bonnie Brae Ice Cream and, gasp, there was a line around the block. Luca could care less since he didn’t actually know what the heck we were doing. Eli, on the other hand, tried with all his might to keep it together. He knew one wrong move and his hopes at getting pink ice cream would be dashed. He stood in the hot, hot line with his eyes closed, saying a little prayer.

Finally, we crossed the threshold and entered the madhouse that was an ice cream store on an 80 degree day. The high school aged staff had ceased giving a crap about the wants and needs of thousands of Denver yuppies.

While Luca put on a clinic of “How To Be An Adorable One Year Old” for the old ladies, Elijah sat at a tiny table, eyes bulging with anticipation.

1 pink cone. 1 mint chocolate chip cone. 1 cookies and cream waffle cone. Stat.

I handed Eli’s pink cone to him and turned to receive cone number 2. Then I heard it.

A scream that punctured the eardrums of everyone in the parlor. Eli had knocked his pink ice cream off his cone and was screaming at its meltingness on the floor.

Diana, the hottest mom in the room, scooped down and grabbed the pink blob off the ground and handed it to the sullen ice cream girl behind the counter.

“Can you just put this on a new cone?”

I grabbed her wrist. “Ew! It’s been on the floor! Give him a new one!”

Diana rolled her eyes at my ignorance of the 5 second rule and asked for a new scoop in a cup, this time.

I walked across the parlor to pay and to distance myself from Eli. I heard him scream again and shriek something about the difference between cones and bowls.

He was that kid! That kid who everyone stares at in the ice cream store. The tantrum kid! I locked eyes with Diana from across the room and we both burst out laughing.

Eventually, we got Eli outside to calm down and he managed to force down his ice cream. Luca commandeered Diana’s cone and inhaled it. But not before covering the entire front of her shirt in ice cream.