Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
he sat in the huge backseat of his Mama and Dada's massive Cadillac eating ice cream with his big sister Donna. His little sister Pammy was just a baby at the time and so was probably with their Mama, who was in the store with Dada (apparently, back in the early 1960s it was considered completely safe to leave your kids in the car out in the parking lot when you went into Montgomery Wards, kidnappers hadn't been invented yet back in the olden days).
Donna was busily eating her ice cream sandwich, but Dougie sat holding his, as his seemed to cold to eat. He nibbled a little, and licked between the two chocolate sheets, but it all seemed so cold. He figured he ought to let it warm up some before he ate it, even though Donna kept assuring him: "It's melting, you better eat it! You're going to get in trouble!" He rarely agreed with his four-year-old big sister, because even at two years of age he felt he was gaining ground on her, as far as opinions go.The ice cream sandwich didn't seem to be getting any warmer, especially as it melted down over the wrapper onto his hand. His hand felt like it was freezing, so he transferred the treat to his other hand, which immediately froze that hand as well. He tried wiping the sticky cold stuff off on his shirt, but then it was dripping on his legs too, and since he was wearing shorts his legs began to freeze.At a time like this, the most sensible thing to do is cry. And Dougie was very good at crying, everyone said so. But the thing of it was, even when he was crying good and hard the ice cream was getting no warmer, it seemed to be expanding and getting colder and spreading everywhere, it was on his face, shirt, arms, legs, all over the backseat, and it was cold, and it was sticky, and since the crying wasn't doing much good at this point, Dougie figured he'd give HARDER crying a try. All the while he was pressing his face against he side window, and the back window, looking for Mama, crying, weeping, blubbering, calling to her: "Mama! Mama!" And it was getting harder and harder to even SEE through the windows, what with all the salt water from Dougie's eyes and the inexhaustible ice cream sandwich spreading literally everywhere, even up on the ceiling of the car.Donna went from extreme mood swing to extreme mood swing, first yelling at her dumb little brother, and then pleading with him that he should start licking the ice cream, and then laughing uproariously at him, and then crying a little herself, back to yelling at him for being such a big crybaby! He was so utterly stupid, he absolutely never listened to her, and she was always full of good advice, and bursting to share it with the world. But she knew that trouble loomed, just on the horizon, because the backseat of Dada's Cadillac was a mess, and Dougie was a mess, and she knew somehow this would all be blamed on her. Somehow this little guy always got her in trouble, and she was not too happy about the whole scheme of things.The miraculous thing about an ice cream sandwich is that to grown-ups it goes way too fast, a couple of bites and nibbles and it is gone, and they must go for another two or three. But with a two-year-old it is the gift that refuses to stop giving, because even with the back car full to waist-level with melted goo, the ice cream sandwich was now concentrating on invading the parking lot where the big tuna boat of a Cadillac sat, and then possibly the mall itself, perhaps to encase even the monstrous Montgomery Wards.When Mama and Papa did return, we are certain there was plenty of yelling, more than a few "Dad Gumitz!" and "Dadburned Boyz!" with Mama pleading poor Dougie's case, and there would be a spanking, for probably Dougie AND Donna, even though the big sister repeatedly assured everyone it was all because her little brother was just so stupid. And Dougie certainly wasn't done crying yet, not by any forgiving leap of intuition. There would be tears, there would always be tears.After he was somewhat cleaned up and Mama had comforted him to small hitching hiccups of snorted breath, and she asked him lovingly what it would take to comfort him, do you know what he asked for?Ice cream.All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
