Lion and Magic Boy

You know how when you build up anticipation for something, it makes you want it all the more?

It all started with ice cream. I don’t eat much ice cream. Maybe once a year. It just isn’t my thing. Salty-crunchy, yes. Sweet and dairy, no. So no ice cream, not much anyway. Hardly ever.

But not long ago Matthew asked me, in a sort of intense (in a good way) moment, what I wanted. Just answering that question unloosed all sorts of things within me, since I don’t know when the last time was that I ever felt so free to say what I wanted. It could have been anything. Anything at all. It was one of those intense (in a good way) moments that you know you will remember for the rest of your life. I could have anything I wanted. I just had to say what it was. Anything. Several things! As many things as I wanted. Only…what did I want?

“Ice cream,” I heard myself say.

Wait. Ice cream? Did I just say that? And indeed, all I could think about then was ice cream, sweet, melty. The thought of ice cream was all wrapped up in that incredibly intense (in a good way) and intimate moment.

Ice cream.

So ever since, I’ve been thinking about ice cream.

The Indian store I frequent (I love being the only non-Indian shopping there) has ice cream. Huge vats of it, with indecipherable writing on the side. I did manage once to identify a picture of a mango on one and we brought home delicious mango ice cream instantly devoured by everyone. Even me, in the kitchen surreptitiously licking the spoon after shoveling it into bowls for everyone else.

But this time I wanted pineapple. Surely the Indian store would stock pineapple ice cream, would they not?

Serena went in with me. She also had a taste for ice cream. Pineapple. We looked inquiringly at the containers. One had a picture of several fruits on the side, including a pineapple. The name was “tutti-frutti”. I figured it was a mixture of flavors, including pineapple. Sure, I could live with that. So we bought a vat of it the size of Wisconsin and trundled it into the back of the car where the weight of it immediately caused the two back tires to go flat. But no matter. We had ice cream.

I amped up the anticipation factor by leaving the thing in the freezer for a couple of days while we all thought slaveringly of pineapple ice cream.

Finally, it was time.

The color of this product is best described as Fluorescent Terra Cotta. And the flavor? Recycled Cotton Candy. And, worse, somebody left bits and pieces, chunks really, of leftover dried fruit pits and skins in it. Or… something.

Even Serena, who has been known to force her way through many a (to me) disgusting thing simply to soak up its sugar content, could not be paid enough to eat a second bowl of tutti-frutti ice cream.

Maybe next year we’ll try the flavor called “custard apple.”