Ice Cream Hassles: The Uncanny Aftermath

When I got home from work, I told the Mrs. my unhappy ice cream tale. When we'd finished eating dinner, she said, "I want some ice cream." I said, "You want ice cream? I was robbed of my ice cream today!" So we hopped in the car and headed down to the Stop & Shop near Wellington Circle.

When we got to the ice cream aisle, I noticed an older couple, woman maybe late fifties, man somewhat older. Actually it would have been hard not to notice them. Each one had a cart strategically parked on either side of the case that held the Ben & Jerry's, and into these carts they were placing pints of the ice cream, in neat rows. They were taking turns diving into the freezer case and coming out with armloads of three or four pints each. (The B&J is on sale this week, and I guess they really, really like it.)

I stood there waiting for them to get out of the way so I could grab a pint, but they didn't seem to notice me, or maybe they did notice me but didn't care. But after a couple of minutes they took a breather, or consulted a list, or something, so I saw my opening and seized my chance. I slipped in, worried that they'd already taken all the good flavors, as there were several gaps on the shelves, but I was able to grab a pint of Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and escape unharmed.

As I walked away I took a quick look at their carts, and because they had arranged their frozen treasure so precisely, I was able to total it up on the fly: each cart had at least two dozen pints of Ben & Jerry's in it. Let's call it fifty pints of ice cream between them, and they weren't done yet. I wonder if they're in charge of an ice cream party somewhere...