The Grapple with American Portions!

For some weird reason, that evil temptation knocked me down only after I had a few hair shaved off my head – (as if those long locks were the reason of my poise). I stared at the not-so-hottest- looking-female-of- the-day over the bridge, devouring a waffle cone of chocolate chips, in the most indulgent fashion. Her teeth were yellow and her tongue was white but it was the cone that made all the difference. I looked away but the seed had been planted. The evil was already inside me. I had to have the chocolate chips by any means possible now (analogous to the Barista coffee at the top floor of the Great India Mall I guess). After leaving a few voicemails (damnn…no one wants to talk to me syndrome), I finally got a call back from one of the loyal members of the bakar-bhasad group advising me with the directions to the nearest JPLicks. Had never heard of them or never bothered to hear about them but they seemed to be the biggest ice cream chain in the world to me right now. A couple of lefts and rights and I was right inside the JPLicks. Choices were easy. Ice cream with chocolate chips in a waffle cone is all I wanted. The big question and the reason for this blog was the size. We know size DOES matter late at nights. It does matter at electronic gizmo labs. But not in icecreams please!! Out of sheer ignorance, I ordered for a medium and ended up getting 4 scoopfuls of icecream with chocolate chips on a disproportionately small waffle cone. I raised my fist in my usual show of frustration but the damage had been done.

I walked out of the store – It was colder outside which might prevent the 3 scoops out of the 4, to melt off - licking the JPLicks creation in a 360-degree fashion, sampling it circumferentially every 2 inches or so. And then to my discomfort, Jieh and Amrita found me, in the most compromising situation, me grappling with a waffle cone that was disproportionately round and huge at the top. I pretended to listen to their girl-talk for 5-10 mins before being asked some pivotal questions, to which I was seemingly unaware. I pretended innocence. Jieh smelled my predicament and let me lick the jplick’s while they talked of eyewear and boyfriends and livers. We parted in 3 different directions hoping that we would meet again on the Halloween evening.

I kept moving towards the bridge, hoping no one would discover my plight; my pace keeping pace with the rate of the cream drip. My hands were all ice-creamed, the napkins I had were soiled but the fighter spirit in me refused to give up. And then! The inevitable happened… I lost my grip on the cone!! It flipped and started falling down. The strong reflexes came to the rescue from my spine rather than the brains and I caught hold of the cone; upside down though!!! I held the two scoops, remaining still, upside with my naked hands and there stood a small girl, requesting for dimes, in laughter. I ignored her with all fervor I could gather, flipped back the cone to its original state. Reason had prevailed by now and I was looking for the nearest trash bin. I found one after treading 20 long treads – a walk that seemed to be as long as a walk from Tommy Doyles’ to Spangler in the harsh Bostonian cold (I could have exaggerated with better analogies but I choose not to!) at 3 in the morning. I summarily trashed the remains of the draconian cone and sped off to the confines of the Hamilton Hall across the river.