What’s on my mind? On this bleak winter’s day, a summer recollection, embarrassingly true.
In the summer of 2017, Himself and I were lolling around scratching our privates, as married people do, when a Dairy Queen ad came on TV. We like Dairy Queen, and have the love handles to prove it.
The ad said seniors could get a free, small-size Dairy Queen cone on such-and-such a date, the word FREE prompting my heart to thump even louder and faster than a hypothetical 30 minutes on the treadmill - hypothetical, because I’ve never actually done it.
I haven’t had anything free since I steamed the uncanceled stamps from the birthday card my sister sent me in 2016, so I was pretty excited, and Himself even more so. Himself’s crazy about ice cream.
On the day we’d marked on our calendars (did I say we were excited?), we hied on down to Dairy Queen and stood in a long lineup of (we presumed) freebie-seekers. When Himself made it to the head of the line, he grinned and said: “We’re here for our free ice cream cones!”
On the day we’d marked on our calendars (did I say we were excited?), we hied on down to Dairy Queen and stood in a long lineup of (we presumed) freebie-seekers. When Himself made it to the head of the line, he grinned and said: “We’re here for our free ice cream cones!”
The young lady behind the counter looked at him with one of those vacant stares that says: “I don’t know who the hell you are or what the hell you’re doing in my line-up, but get the hell out of here.”
What she actually said was: “Huh?”
So Himself, still grinning, repeated what he’d said: “We’re here for our free ice cream cones!”
“We don’t have any free ice cream cones,”she said.
“You may think you don’t, but we saw it on TV!” Himself said.
“There are people in line behind you, sir.”
“B-b-but … We saw it on TV…”
“I’ll have to call my supervisor.”
“For seniors!” I yelled. “Free for seniors!”
The young lady was fast morphing into a - I don’t normally use this word, but it rhymes with “itch.”
“Psst-psst-psst-psst-psst-psst-psst …” Itch to Supervisor, who turned to us and said: “Step out of the line, sir. STEP OUT OF THE LINE!”
Himself went into shock. I’d retreated to my happy place, which is whiny and red-eyed. If at first you don’t succeed, cry, cry again.
“But we’re seniors,” I whispered.
With a look that said: “You’re idiots and I really don’t give a fig,” the supervisor addressed us in loud, slow words, so that as elderly folk, we might grasp it: “The ad was on American TV. It was for American Dairy Queens. Not Canadian Dairy Queens. There are no free ice cream cones in Canada.”
Himself went further into shock. Perhaps not wanting to look like the cheapskate he is, he said: “Well, then … We’ll have two medium-sized cones.”
They were massive. We felt sick, eating all that ice cream. We haven’t visited the Dairy Queen since, and probably never will.
They were massive. We felt sick, eating all that ice cream. We haven’t visited the Dairy Queen since, and probably never will.
© Nicole Parton, 2019
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