#ice cream cake
Aries: Pound Cake
Taurus: Chocolate Cake
Gemini: Cheesecake
Cancer: Angel Food Cake
Leo: Triple Chocolate Cake
Virgo: Vanilla Cake
Libra: Fudge Cake
Scorpio: Molten Chocolate Cake
Sagittarius: Carrot Cake
Capricorn: Lemon Cake
Aquarius: Ice Cream Cake
Pisces: Sponge Cake
Ice cream cake is very important. It brings people together. Unless you are lactose intolerant. Or you have a gluten problem. But everyone else. Sorry.
When I came to college, I spent the better part of my time at The Wardrobe’s dorm on the sixth floor of the Tower. There were a number of people associated with this story, a lot of participants, but i won’t mention anyone by name. What you are about to hear is both the best and worst of the people I have come to love very dearly, I would say, because of this moment.
We had been in college for maybe two months or so when The Wardrobe’s mom called in an ice cream cake order to the Moscow Baskin and Robbins. We went together to pick it up and when we returned she walked through the hall inviting all of our new friends to partake.
There was great joy.
She set the immaculate vanilla on chocolate masterpiece just a few paces away from her dorm room door and stood, feed spread shoulder width apart and hands in front of her chest as if to stay the onslaught of people.
“Okay,” She said in an authority that did not beg for peace, but demanded it. “Who needs forks?”
Not plates, not bowls, not napkins, not dignity.
Forks.
We assumed our weapons and encircled the gluten and dairy delight, prepared for battle more than enjoyment.
One of our party suffered an illness, though unlike a herd of zebra who may leave their weakest to the lion, we behaved like well-minded, thoughtful humans, quarantining a corner for her and declaring it hers alone. Not that it did much good as to keep her involved, the corner remained solidly attached.
And we were at it like wolves to a sweet, chocolate, creamy, melty, doe.
At least until we realized that after twenty minutes, that gift from Sandpoint above was still frozen solid. Not a fork, steel, silver, or otherwise, would penetrate that Canadian glacier exterior.
We were trapped. Yes, trapped. Stuck within a want and a can’t have. Much like being a toddler again. We fanned out along the hall, hoping it might drop it’s defenses and allow us a share. After a half hour of defrostation, The Wardrobe stuck a fork in it and declared it done. Kind of.
Just hardly soft enough to consume, but good enough for our time, energy, and patience.
And so we ate. Bite after bite until a discarded center was left in the middle of us, too soft and too sweet. We were finished, though the cake would have had us believe otherwise.
Cake on the floor, ice cream on chins, eighteen year old collegians laying on the floors of hallways, feeling a delayed sense of regret. Maybe wishing there had been more of us. Maybe wishing there had been less of it.
When I returned in the spring of the following year, I would uphold a would be mocked, detested, highly anticipated tradition of The Ice Cream Cake. By no means timed nor quantified.
I would simply show up at a friends dorm with a cake. Any who would answer the siren call would join us - always in the same manner. No plates. No bowls. No dignity.
Only cake.
