The Ice Cream Cone

Last night the lad and I were talking while I made dinner. He asked when the realization hit me that life wasn’t always fair. Sometimes his questions give me pause and I’m not always able to come up with a ready answer. This time, though, I didn’t have to think twice.

“I was six years old,” I said.

“You can remember when you were six?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” I said. “I remember.”

It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer between kindergarten and first grade. My best friend, Janey, was having a birthday party. Her Mom had reserved a car on a train and we were going to spend the afternoon riding between our town and the next largest city, about an hour away. And then we’d come back. That was exciting, since I don’t think any of us had ever been on a train before. But the most exciting part was having ice cream cones. When I was six years old, ice cream was the most indescribable treat. It was something that we rarely had.

I hardly remember the train ride. It was the means to the ice cream. That was the main event and we lined up, waiting our turn. Janey’s mom handed each of us a cone and then scooped a perfect round ball of green ice cream out of the container and plopped it on top. After she gave me mine, I turned and walked away, busily licking my ice cream. The rest of the world ceased to exist until, a second later, one of the other girls bumped into me and my ice cream toppled right off the cone and went splat on the floor. What else would a kid do but turn around with her empty cone and ask for another. I pointed to my ice cream melting on the floor and held out my cone. Janey’s mom said that she was very sorry, but there was only enough ice cream for one scoop per girl. And not an ounce of sympathy, either. I was stricken.

And out of luck. The only kid on the train without an ice cream cone. All the other girls enjoyed theirs while I watched mine melt on the floor. No ice cream. The biggest event of the day and I was totally screwed. My heart was broken and I simply couldn’t believe that, through no fault of my own, I lost my ice cream and it wasn’t going to be replaced. It was the worst day of my six year old life. It was crushing. Life wasn’t fair. Just.Not.Fair.

I must have relived it so well in the telling that the lad gave me a big hug and said, “Whoa, that was a tough one. I’m really sorry. Did you cry?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t. I wanted to and I felt like it, but I wouldn’t cry in front of everyone else.”

That’s the only thing I remember about the entire day. I don’t remember what the train looked like. I can’t even remember what Janey looked like. She moved away the next summer. But I surely do remember the agony of watching my one and only green ball of ice cream melt into a puddle on the gritty floor.