I love summer and all of the good stuff that comes with summer, such as ice cream trucks. I saw this chart on the internet the other day which showed the typical ice cream novelties commonly available from ice cream trucks. It made me instantly happy. Who doesn’t have fond childhood memories of “the ice cream man”? My regular go-to is the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bar (even at the age of 50, I am not beyond having my heart flutter as I rush to my purse, when I hear the familiar sound of the ice cream truck’s twinkling tune, and then pretend that I was just out getting my mail, as I try to appear all casual-like, among the throngs of neighborhood children – “oh well, perhaps a little ice cream could be refreshing, you know, for nostalgia’s sake.”) I honestly have tried each and every one of these scrumptious offerings on the chart, over the years, except for the “Screw Ball”. I had to look it up. I had no idea what a Screw Ball was, so it intrigued me greatly. It turns out that a Screw Ball is a sherbert type concoction in a cone, with a gum ball at the very bottom of the cone. (And this is the part of my story when I envision you all nodding, and rolling your eyes and saying, “Duh! How could you not know what a Screw Ball is???”) I am still not quite curious enough to switch from my Strawberry Shortcake selection, to a Screw Ball, but if it were the last offering left, I wouldn’t say no.
Speaking of gum, I bought four packets of Cinnamon Extra gum at my local Walgreens the other day. They were on clearance for fifteen cents each. When the kind and friendly young man behind the counter was ringing me out, I asked him if he liked gum. “Oh, I like gum,” he said. “Well, take one of these for yourself,” I said on a whim.
Friends, you would have thought I had handed the clerk, a gold bar or a Bitcoin token. His grateful and joyous and sincere reaction kind of bewildered me. He was so overwhelmingly thankful, that part of me was desperate to rummage through my purse for something more, like a hundred dollar bill in order to truly warrant his thankfulness (which I would not have found, because I don’t honestly carry around a lot of cash in my purse these days, and nor did I figure that he would want a used tube of lipstick). I started to sadly wonder if this young man hadn’t received many gifts in his life. Still, the experience, made me feel great. And it obviously seemed to make the clerk feel good, too. This fifteen cent, clearance gum is the most satisfying gum which I have ever purchased in my life, for myself or for anybody else, and I haven’t even taken the cellophane wrapper off of it yet. I suppose that there really is truth to the old adage, “It’s the thought that counts.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.