ice cream etiquette

today i went to my favorite (well, really only) ice cream shoppe to get some gelato. as i was walking in, i was immediately preceded by two middle-aged ladies. once inside, i noticed two younger girls who had yet to order. i was able to decide which flavors i wanted in about the time it took the two girls to order and get their gelato. unfortunately, i still had the two middle-aged ladies to wait for.

the first one asked to taste one flavor... and then another. then the other lady also tasted two flavors. after all this tasting, one might imagine that these ladies would know exactly what they wanted... but no! the first lady had to try yet another flavor, before deciding on the three flavors to get--none of which she had tasted. the first lady proceeded to pay for her purchase.

when the serving girl came to lady number two, all ready to scoop, lady number two was "still deciding" on what to get. at this point, i had been waiting approximately ten minutes and was getting rather annoyed by her indecisiveness. who takes ten minutes to choose what kind of ice cream to get? her friend had already taken forever to get her ice cream, and now she still didn't know what she wanted? lady two asked for a taste of yet another flavor, but failed to make her final decision. i proceeded to stare at the lady with a profound hatred. the kind of loathing stare that only sippycup could begin to fathom and perform. glancing at the serving girl was of no use, as she was distracted by the cute baby that lady two was holding. lady two said "i think i want mango and coconut... but i'm not sure what else..." and then asked the baby what it wanted. luckily, we did not have to wait for a response from the baby as it was clearly incapable of any sort of intelligible response. so finally, it after about twenty minutes, i was able to get some gelato.

all of this could have been avoided had society imparted the rules of ice cream etiquette onto these two annoying ladies. most notably: don't talk to the server and point as if you are able to make a decision on ice cream if you are still five minutes away from making your actual choice. to avoid such situations in the future, i have created created a mnemonic to help you remember what to do:

if you're choosing gelato and have any doubt,
please be kind to others and don't be a lout.
take no more than ten seconds to choose a flavor,
otherwise take your fat ass and get the hell out.
(especially if you're one of two middle-aged ladies)