The church bells were ringing but, as she was rummaging in the trunk of her car for the new cat box, she thought to herself that it was actually the sound of an ice cream truck. As always, this delighted her. However, it seemed to be taking the ice cream man an odd amount of time to travel down the street. Was he actually broken down? The tinkly music did seem stationary... What a way to start your work day, she thought, as she hoisted the cat box under her arm and closed the trunk. The possibility of massive amounts of ice cream all melting together, running everywhere: Bomb Pops, Creamsicles, Fudgesicles, Eskimo Pies, Fat Boys, etc., It made her cringe to even think where one would even begin to clean that up. Furthermore, what sort of mood would the ice cream man be in when he went home? Hopefully, he had someone he could talk it out with because ice cream is a very unstable product to deal with.
Last night, she had been having the most wonderful conversation with a very good friend. It was the type of conversation that, had time disappeared, it would have been a good thing because you could have gone on laughing, giggling, hugging, singing and whispering very deep things until your eyes demanded to close. In fact, as she carried the cat box across the street she couldn't recall individual details of the conversation in particular, with the exception of one thing. She remembered her friend giggling, "I wish I could be you everyday."
This had taken her aback, much in the same way that the thought of cleaning up hundreds of pounds of melted ice cream had. When frozen and kept under proper temperature regulation, ice cream is great to deal with. Everyone is excited about it. Most people like to expound on their favorite way to eat it and how it is actually a fairly interactive part of their lives. It's fun. It's flavorful. It comes in tons of funny, fantastic names. Yet, once it has melted and taken on that odd, warm quality and starts giving off a slightly nauseating scent, it becomes a little less inviting. In its more unstable state, it isn't pretty and it is sloppy. The funny thing is, once it gets into this state, it is much harder to get it back to its original state. Most of the time it freezes into some bizarre form of its melted life.
This wasn't the first time someone had said this to her. Her personality had the tendency to be comical and the words that fell out of her mouth were cartoonish and fanciful. Her imagination didn't just run away. It grabbed the hands of the people around her and took them with her. Unfortunately, it is much easier for them to leave than it is for her. For when they let go of her hand and the ice cream begins to melt, there can be quite the mess. She is the one who sometimes cheerfully cleans up all the Otter Pops or other times cries despairingly at the colors running together uncontrollably. And other times she is frustrated because the words are too small for how big and beautiful the colors of the melted ice cream are and the only thing she can do is lie down beside it and be a part of the vision.
She unlocked her front door and carried the cat box up the stairs. Once in her apartment, she opened the closet where the cat boxes were kept and replaced Charlie, the younger cat's, box with the new one. Afterwards, she washed her hands, put on some coffee and made some oatmeal. Once the kettle had caught a boil, she added it to the packet of instant oats, leaving just enough water in the measuring cup so that it wouldn't be too watery when she added her almond creamer. She scratched her nail on the black tiled counter for a few seconds as she waited for the water to soak into the oats. A boy whose behavior had hurt her feelings crossed her mind and she wondered what he was doing. Immediately after she sighed and smiled at her thoughts. Her momentary instability. Her little ice cream spills. Her large ice cream spills.
As she spooned her oatmeal into her mouth, standing next to sink, because that was where she ate when she was alone, she thought about all the people she had thought she would like to be in the past. But when her friend made that comment last night, she thought, as she spooned more cakey oatmeal into her mouth, about how it made her realize we have no idea about the massive ice cream meltdowns that exist within the admirations and laughter we want to absorb or walk around inside.
It was a very nice gesture but ice cream is a very unstable product.
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