From The Depths To The Pinnacle In 24 Hours

Sometimes, Even Steven has a chuckle at my expense.

Farmer H drove T-Hoe to get us a frozen custard on Sunday. Not the really tasty frozen custard that my mom and I are going to have on Wednesday after we respectively have a lesion sawed off our face, and a dye-fueled CAT scan of our lungs. That establishment was too far to drive on my gas money. So we made do with the lesser custard.

The Pony indulged in a chocolate sundae, Farmer H copied my order and juggled a giant waffle cone with chocolate/vanilla twist custard, and I had a waffle cone with chocolate. Therein lies the mechanism of Even Steven's titter (heh, heh. I said TITter). The Pony's sundae came out first. The twist waffle cone was handed through the window next, by the woman who took the order. It took forever for my chocolate waffle cone. Even Farmer H, declining my offer to hold his twist while he waited for my chocolate, slurping away at that towering mound of frozen custard, sometimes with the spoon, sometimes with his Angelina-Jolie-sized lips, felt the need to comment, "I think the chocolate machine is broken."

No. It wasn't the chocolate machine that was broken. My waffle cone was handed out by the teenage guy who had been hovering over that worker-woman's shoulder. You know the little peak on top of a soft-serve cone? Not the delicate loopy curlicue of a Dairy Queen faux-ice-cream cone. The peak that points skyward like a monument as the soft-serve machine stops serving. My chocolate peak jutted out to the side like a Pinocchio nose. Or something less appropriate on a mound of frozen custard just waiting for a good tongue-licking, which shall not be named here.

I could live with my misshapen custard. The taste was not altered by the deformation. No, it was the discovery I made next that caused me to virtually shake my fist at Even Steven and whine, "WHYYYYY?" in my best Nancy Kerrigan voice. A single napkin attempted to encircle the pointy bottom of my crispy waffle. It only went about half-way around. I had a few left from previous frozen custard runs, so I grabbed them from their resting place near the cupholders for further swaddling. It takes a long time to eat a waffle cone, you know. That's why I can only have one when Farmer H is driving. We are not sit-down custard customers. I daresay I have not had a waffle cone for nigh on four years now, back before the #1 son was driving, when we used to take a family ride for ice cream. So imagine the depths of my despair when I saw that the peak-challenged lad who made my long-awaited treat had broken off the tip of my waffle cone!

In theory, my frozen custard sat atop a giant crispy funnel. I jammed a folded portion of napkin in the cavernous orifice, then wrapped the base with four or five more, much like packing a gaping wound on one of the Civil War soldiers tended by Melanie at the Atlanta train depot while Scarlett was fiddle-dee-deeing. You know, don't you, that the best bite of waffle cone is the point, after the frozen custard has unfrozen a bit, and settled into the end? I was robbed! Robbed of my tastiest morsel! So morose was I that when I came to that part, I did not even attempt to suck the fluid chocolate out of the wadded napkins. Fie on that faux custard-slinger! May I never darken his drive-thru window again.

On the other hand, Even Steven smiled on me today when I stopped by the gas station chicken store to cash in a $20 scratch-off winner. I took those winnings and the $13 in my pocket and purchased six tickets. One was a last-minute substitution, because a ticket under the glass-topped counter called my name. Five of those six tickets were winners. I raked in a total of $141. Not too shabby. Oh, and the substitute? It was worth one hundred dollars by itself.

I am preparing for the next Evening by Steven.