we all scream for...

I am currently smiling because I just walked down to the corner market and splurged on a little carton of Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie. I ate about a quarter of it with a spoonful of peanut butter. Yummmmmmmmmm :) This started me thinking about ice cream and how it never fails to make me smile. But then, it probably makes everyone smile... except those who are lactose intolerant, I suppose. ;-)

My freshman dorm experience was less than ideal (how's that for a smooth transition? :). The rooms were beyond tiny, and there were strict rules and cockroaches. Eww. I had a great roommate, though, and friends who would regularly drop in at odd hours and steal me away for midnight adventures (more to come: paper sailboats, "spill on aisle 12," and clown makeup...). On one such night, two friends, Kyle and David, knocked at my door, having snuck up the back stairwell. They convinced me to go outside with them, dressed in my P.J.s. Once we got outside, Kyle told me that they had been planning to get B & Js at the 7-11 across the Speedway, and they knew a "secret passageway" under the street. When we arrived at the poorly-lit tunnel, however, I became a little nervous. To reassure/distract me, Kyle promptly broke into a rousing rendition on "Islands in the Stream." David looked at him, grinned, and belted out the harmony. They began to fling their arms out and gesture wildly as we walked along. I couldn't help but smile... even as a security guard approached, frowning. The boys kept on, and as we passed the guard, I caught a glimpse of him suppressing a smile. We got our ice cream- mine being Cherry Garcia- without further incident.

I spoke of my Chinese friend Hoang Guan in a previous post, who often took me to local markets in Yulin, China. It was unexpectedly and unbearably humid one October day, and the two of us stopped at what amounts to an ice cream truck for a refreshing treat. Having just arrived in China, I had not yet learned the necessity of a Chinese-English dictionary, and trusted that my friend would choose a good flavor for me. After much deliberation, Hoang Guan handed me an ice cream bar wrapped in neon green, featuring a young girl winking. She assured me, "It is tasty!" I gingerly took a bite... and nearly gagged. Looking again at the wrapping, I discovered faint illustrations of green peas. Yes, that's right. Pea flavored ice cream. Yummmmm. I bet y'all would have loved to watch me worry that bar down with a smile, in the hopes that Hoang Guan would not be offended. She had, after all, spent a significant amount of her very meager earnings... And due to my command performance, Hoang Guan forever afterward (or the rest of my year's stay) thought that I simply loved pea flavoring, and brought me such treats regularly!