Listening

Saturday afternoon my friend Cami and I took both girls to get some ice cream. It was an outing that required just the right amount of effort for a weekend afternoon: not too much like chasing a toddler around a park so that she doesn’t impale herself on a fence, not too little like falling asleep on the couch and letting the toddler scribble on your face with a fork.

When we pulled into the parking lot I leisurely glanced to the car parked on my left to make sure I had left enough room only to see a woman sitting in its passenger seat molesting her ice cream cone. What she was doing to that thing is probably illegal in Utah.

Before I turned the car off I told Cami to look at the porn unfolding next to us, and by the look on Cami’s face I could tell that it was only getting worse. So I did what I never should have done and I took another look. That woman was doing things with her tongue that should not be shared outside of one’s bedroom. Let’s just say that her ice cream cone was going to be in a great mood the following morning.

You guys, there are people out there right now eating ice cream cones in public just like she was, and they’re thinking no big deal. Let me tell you what, ice cream cone eater: YOU’RE WRONG. The only way you can eat an ice cream cone and not look like a pervert is with a spoon. So I decided right then that I will only ever eat an ice cream cone in front of Jon. And probably Mila Kunis.

After we thoroughly got the barfing sounds out of our mouths we took the kids inside and ordered our treats. Having been so recently shell-shocked, both Cami and I ordered our ice cream in cups. But Leta wanted a cone, a chocolate-dipped cone, and since I was feeling generous I let her get the regular scoop and not the kid-sized scoop. I will bring this up when she asks for presents come Christmas. What? Presents are for kids. Kids who eat kid-sized scoops. BOO-YAH.

We found a table near the door and began eating when a kid two tables over started making a racket. I looked up only because it was so sudden and noticed that he was wearing a sheet draped over his shoulder like in ancient Rome. Weird, I thought to myself, and as I scooped a spoonful of ice cream into Marlo’s mouth Cami goes, “DOUBLE-YOU TEE EFF, HEATHER. Why is that kid wearing bed linens?”

Maybe he was playing dress up? Maybe he thinks the ancient Romans had it right all along? Who knows, he’s probably three years old, and when your kid is that age you’ll let them wear their pajamas to church if it makes them stop screaming.

But right then that kid lifted up his sheet to reveal that he was not wearing any underpants whatsoever. And with the sheet still pulled up around his waist he climbed up into his chair and sat bare-butt in the seat. Turns out we still had barfing noises to spare.

I was like, DUDE, CAMI, are you thinking about your own seat now? Who was sitting here before I was sitting here, and had that person recently wiped? Turns out that this thought can spiral in a thousand different and unpleasant directions, so it’s best to not consider the previous occupant of your seat at all. You can redirect your attention to the image of someone having sex with an ice cream cone.

That kid and his family left while we were waiting for Leta Must Savor Every Moment Of Her Ice Cream Cone Armstrong to finish up. I had to chase Marlo around, distracting her with spoons and napkins, and the whole time I kept going, Leta! Seriously! Speed it up just a bit! Her response?

“Haven’t you ever heard of brain freeze, Mom?”

I set Marlo down so that I could bow to Leta’s superior frozen food knowledge when suddenly Marlo made a mad dash. It’s like the radar in her head had gone off, and she took off for that contaminated chair. MUST. CONTRACT. DISFIGURING. DISEASE.

And I thought I was going to be fast enough, but in fact, I was so not fast enough that not only did she rub her hands all over that chair, she rubbed her face on it, too. THE? Since when did she start going around rubbing her face on chairs? Especially chairs that have been smudged by the butt cheeks of a stranger who most likely doesn’t know how to use a toilet.

Cami didn’t rush to my side with the wipes I had luckily packed for the trip, no. In fact, she sat in her seat and started laughing so hard that she sounded like a pick-up truck whose starter is broken. I yanked Marlo up and slung her over my shoulder, marched her back to our table and proceeded to give her a bath right there, starting with her ass-stained face.

I think the chorus to this song goes, “This shit just happens to us.”