Afternoon Delight

The woman in the car next to me was eating an ice cream cone. It was late in the day, a cool February Tuesday, and the woman, who looked to be about my age, was driving around enjoying an ice cream cone.

When I was young, and begged my dad to ride bikes with me to Topsy's Ice Cream, I knew that when I grew up and could do as I pleased, I would ride my bike to Topsy's every day. Sometimes I would get two scoops, most of the time I would get two scoops, and I would always, no exceptions, get my ice cream in a cone.

As it turns out, I never ride my bike to Topsy's. But it seems to me that every once in a while you should have ice cream in the middle of the day, for no reason other than you can, even if it's a snowy cold day when you should be at home eating soup. Being a parent has made me far more practical than I ever thought possible, and too often I say things like, "no, dinner is in an hour" or "walk around the puddles please".

It's nice to be reminded how much I loved a scoop of strawberry in a cone and just how good ice cream tastes in the middle of the day, before dinner, when there's no reason to be there, and no real reason not to be.