In case you didn’t know, July is National Ice Cream Month. Don’t worry if you didn’t know. There’s still plenty of time to use it as an excuse to make a gluttonous pig of yourself. In my own personal quest to prove myself as “the guy most into ice cream of anyone you know,” I’ve been hitting a different spot on each day thus far.
In making sure that everybody is aware of my reputation, I’ve also been forcing the unnatural phrase “Happy National Ice Cream Month” into almost every conversation I have. It may sound clunky, but trust me—it goes places. Just yesterday while debuting it to my friend Pete Baker, an old buddy I grew up with in The Bronx, he got all excited. Because like everyone else I’ve told, Pete had no idea of the designation.
It turned out that Pete had just celebrated without even realizing it (because it’s summer and that’s what people do). He had been hanging out in a particularly touristy part of the city and got the urge for a milkshake upon spotting one of the many trucks that liberally use the Mister Softee model for their own rip-off version. No one cares about this of course because no one ever attributed any high degree of quality to Mister Softee in the first place. We all turn a blind eye to copyright infringement in in the name of finding the quickest way to recognize “ice cream on wheels.”
So Pete goes up to the fake Softee and asks how much a milkshake is. The guy in the truck says, “Seven dollars.” Outraged at this, Pete shoots back, “Well how much is it for locals?” The guy, sensing that Pete has been around the block (and unlock the rest of his customers, even further than that) senses that the only way he’ll make a sale is if he says, “All right, I’ll give it to you five. But don’t let anybody see what you’re paying me.”
Tags: national ice cream month
