Space-Time Ice-Creamium

Recently, after some Lebonese dinner across town, my wife said, “There’s an ice cream place only two blocks away. Let’s go!”

I was already full. Case in point: She was toting a box of leftovers but I was not. Mine had been crammed down my gullet. This scenario would soon allow me to put my advanced decision-making skills on display.

We walked into the shop and it was what I like to describe as “Portland cute.” The place was constructed to look post-industrial. This means concrete walls, vaulted ceilings with lots of duct work, lighting fixtures that hang all the way down from the ceiling and, of course, the pièce de résistance of the Portland eatery scene: the fake garage door. Those things are ubiquitous around here, perhaps even on par with the fedora and other trendy chapeaux.

We walked up to the counter. Too far a way was a board that described the offerings. The writing was too small for me to read. Aside from a list of featured ice creams, no other information was available at the counter where it could have been visible.

Through a blur I made out the heading “Sundaes” and “$7.”

“I’ll take that first sundae on the list,” I said. It was something to do with coffee so I figured what the hell. Coffee in ice cream! I smell another trend.

This has got to be the jewel of my collection. I made out with my iPod after taking this shot. I call it “Ha ha ha!”

Again, I was already full. Can’t allow that to slow down ordering, though. Gotta be decisive.

My wife, a foodie on steroids since moving to the big city, was sorely tempted by the chevre ice cream. For those not in the know, that’s ice cream made from milk that came out of a goat. Personally I’m holding out for meowvre, which is cheese made from the milk of a cat. Logic dictates that all animals must produce their own bold flavors. Instead, though, she played it trendy with a scoop of salted caramel and a scoop of black licorice.

Salt on ice cream could be a post on it’s own. Maybe I’ll get to that thorny issue on another day.

I sat down with my huge sundae and had a problem. I wasn’t hungry. That bowl represented a small localized disturbance located off my port bow. But I wasn’t about to let my $7 investment go to waste. I mentioned an “ice cream doggy bag” but no one took me seriously.

“That’s it,” I said, digging in for the long haul. “This thing is going down.” That’s guru style.

That’s when the space-time ice-creamium kicked in. It works like this:

At home, with the bowl balanced precariously on my belly, and enjoying the “loading, please wait” bar on Netflix, the ice cream seems to vaporize. It’s gone in the blink of an eye.

At the ice cream stand, though, time had slowed to a crawl. It was bite after bite, in tedious slow motion, landing with audible thuds in my chest. I could literally see the ice cream coming at my face hole. It was that slow! It turns out that when there is nothing to do but look around at the post-industrial design, flirt with eye contact with your mate and engage in actual conversation, that bowl of ice cream lasts a really, really long time.

When done, my belly was so taut we loaned it out to a drum circle for the night.

I’m now safely home in dry dock where the effects of last night will likely take several weeks to dissipate.