Sometimes I do thing that I believe in but still goes
against what I was told. There’s this
weird thing that goes on inside me, I wouldn’t call it a conflict, more of an awareness
that I’m bucking the system and I don’t care; lessons learned from our parents
that need to be broken. Of course then
there are the ones I know I’m channeling my dad, I can’t begin to tell you how
much my inner child cringes every time I tell Peyton to close the door behind
her. I wonder if she’ll ever remember or
care; I wonder why I never cared when I was her age?
But this isn’t about letting out the cold air on a hot
day, this is about that annoying high pitch musical frozen sugar dealer that
drives the big white van. There is
something about hearing that music from 3 blocks away that stirs some primal
feeling in every child in the world; much more powerful than Pavlov’s bell to
dogs. I’m almost convinced that a kid
doesn’t even have the ability to not react when they hear it. The promise of an un-anticipated, un-planned
completely random dessert at a time in the day when one isn’t normally allowed
- JACKPOT! What’s not to love?
Well for parents, there is a lot not to love, we know we
are over paying, we know they already had their allotted artificially filled sugary
rations for the day, we know sometimes kids have to hear the word no. And for me I also know that Peyton has never,
not once, ever actually finished anything from the frozen treat pusher man. In fact at any given time there are probably
at least half a dozen unfinished ice cream products in our freezer that we are
saving for her because she requested to “finish it later” but never has.
The lead up to the AHA! moment. The over-priced, frozen push-up, gestapo came
by last night and in typical kid fashion, as if they are somehow programmed to
turn into begging zombies that need ice cream in order to survive, she came
running out of the depths of childhood playtime, stopped everything she was
doing with pinpoint accuracy and exclaimed, as if we had no idea, THE ICE CREAM
MAN IS HERE!!!!!
At that exact moment, all sorts of things go through my
head instantly: did she eat dinner yet? Did she already have a dessert? Do I
have a few bucks in my pocket or do I need to go get my wallet? Should she be
eating ice cream now? Why don’t they make frozen vegetable pops? Why does that song hurt my ears as an adult
but not as a child? Should I get one for myself, even though I’m not hungry? And
the weird question that sparked this whole diatribe … What about the 156 uneaten
ice cream/ice pops in the freezer? Why can’t I just point out there are plenty,
already paid for, half eaten, going to waste, starving kids in Africa would
love, ice pops in the freezer that nobody wanted 5 minutes ago? WHY?????
And then it hit me, luckily before I even opened my mouth;
because, because she’s a child. And for whatever reason sometimes some
childhood experiences need to be experienced. It really doesn’t matter that no
one is ever going to eat those 5 thousand, 3 hundred and twenty six half eaten
pops in the freezer, it doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much for one pop
as it does a whole box of them at the supermarket, it doesn’t matter that she
already had a few cookies after dinner.
It’s because she is experiencing that promise of something amazing, that
childhood rush, the glory of cold sweet windfall that no amount of planning could
compare. And even though that moment
only last 10 minutes or so, for those 10 minutes she discovered gold and the euphoria
that accompanies it. What tastes better
than that on a hot sunny evening?
… yea and one creamsicle too?
