Ok, so let me explain. I swear I am not trying to assign deep meaning to simple images. I digress. Now I have my theories; hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, increased numbers of wild animals attacking humans: all signs that the world is (slowly?) coming to an end. Am I concerned? Well, honestly, only mildly...until yesterday.
I have been waiting for Cleveland to realize that it's Spring so that I may indulge my craving for a vanilla soft serve cone gloriously enrobed in rainbow sprinkles. As far as snack shacks go Dari Delight is particularly seedy. You know a place that is only open five months a year has got to be selling eight balls of blow out of the side door to subsidize earnings. For months I drove through inches of snow past this lonely spot waiting for it to open. I really don't think there is anything as depressing as an ice cream shop in the dead of winter; the hopeful hamburger/soft drink/swirl cone adorned sign standing like a soldier guarding the treat palace during the off-season.
Finally! This weekend it was open and ready to sate my long-standing craving. I rehearsed in the car ride over, " One small vanilla wafer cone with rainbow sprinkles." Just thinking about it made my soul glow like the northern lights. I pulled up in front, got out of my car, my stomach tingling with anticipatory butterflies. I approached the screened window and heard, "What can I get for you?" It was the voice of an angel My order passed through my lips like poetry. I spoke slowly and clearly and maintained eye-contact to insure my order was understood. "Oh. We don't have sprinkles here." I went blind for a second as disappointment slapped me across the face. No sprinkles???? NO FUCKING SPRINKLES?!?!?!?!? Now, I would love to go off on a diatribe of emotion, but nothing I could say would accurately express what I felt at that moment. All I know is that I thought natural disasters were indications of the impending apocalypse, but the day a mom and pop ice cream shack isn't able to fulfill my order for a vanilla cone with sprinkles is all the evidence I need that God is smiting mankind and the end is nigh...
