"No, not what do you like in it, what are you looking for in ice cream? What qualities do you like? Different people like different things in their ice cream."
"Um."
"There's a huge variety out there. Hardness, consistency, that kind of thing. I'm really fussy about what makes good ice cream."
"Well, I like it to be cold --"
"Shit! I'm going to run out gas. Please don't run out of gas. Oh dear. I just ran out of gas. I am now stuck in this intersection with no gas. What do I do? Shit. I'm totally in the middle of the road."
"Are you near home?"
"Yes! I'm like five blocks from my house. And I am out of gas. I can see the gas station, but I can't just, like, leave my car here in the middle of the road. What do I do?"
"You really shouldn't drive around that low on gas, you know."
"Thanks."
I've never actually run out of gas before. Check that off the Life Experience list.
"Oh, look, there's a dust cloud coming. This is perfect. I always wanted to be stuck in rush hour traffic at zero visibilty in a car with no gas. Great."
"I'd help you, but I'm three thousand miles away. Call AAA."
I called AAA, then three very nice men took pity on me and shoved my car out of the intersection. So, I cancelled AAA and began walking to the gas station in the blowing dust.
Eventually, once the storm was really upon me, I was walking back to my car. I did, in fact, get blowed over onto a pile of landscaping rocks. With the gas can. I put the gas in and drove down to the station and filled up. My car does, as suspected, have a twelve gallon gas tank. Now I know for sure.
Then I stopped at an Irish-themed Chinese restaurant and got dinner. My fortune cookie says "Cheerful company and a merry time are ahead for you"
Tomorrow I depart for NYC and ydelek and Friday, JournalCon, where I was being told I would have some good ice cream...
I never did get to find out what he's looking for in ice cream, incidentally. Personally, I like my ice cream like Graeter's or Homemade Brands. I like it hand packed, very thick and solid, with "real" chunks of stuff.
I only really enjoy ice cream when it comes from an ice cream parlor, not a grocery store. Interestingly, Ben and Jerry's would otherwise meet the criteria, except, that ice cream is too much. Too much crap, not enough ice cream.
I do not care for Cold Stone. As Shelly put it, "it's like taffy ice cream". Soft serve is okay, but it's not really worth it. If I am going to eat store-bought ice cream, I prefer that it come packaged as a sandwhich or on a stick, and in that case, I'm going to choose Rice Dream every time.
I'm not brave enough to eat dippin' dots, mostly because I just cannot believe that pellets of anything are going to be yummy. I've never heard anyone say anything good about them either.
When I was fifteen I lived for seven weeks on a diet of coffee and hard bread with jelly for breakfast, European ice cream for lunch (like, a five scoop cone at noon and then maybe three scoops in the midafternoon), and french fries and alcohol for dinner. I was highly pleased with every meal.
I'm such a snob about some things. Ice cream is most certainly one of them.
