Coke or Ice Cream

Our family seldom ate out.  Once in a great while Mom had Dad pick up a sack of hamburgers at a little cafe near our house and we ate them at home, but the only time we ever went to a restaurant was when one of us kids turned eight and we were baptized.  Then we would go to Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant, on the corner of Main and

Alma School Road

in Mesa.  Dad would always tell us about how he had milked cows in that same spot when he was a kid.  His grandparents homesteaded that corner, and it was where he and his mother were both born.

One of the fun things about going to the cabin was getting to stop at a little drive-in restaurant in Payson to get a soft serve ice-cream cone.  We looked forward to that treat, and were always cross if we had to drive the long way up to the cabin, through Globe.  There were no ice cream drive-ins there.

One trip Grandma and Grandpa Russell rode up to the cabin with us.  We were happy to have them come, and they wanted to do something special for us in return.  Grandma suggested Dad stop at a little grocery store in Payson to pick up a few things they needed, and she bought Drum Sticks (you know, the packaged frozen ice cream cones they sell in grocery stores) for all of us.  It was really, really nice of her, but us kids were not gracious.  We grumbled and frowned all the way to the cabin, cross that we didn't get to stop at the drive in for our anticipated treat. 

One late summer afternoon we stopped at the little cafe on our way home from the cabin.  We were in the camper, and it wouldn’t fit under the porch outside the drive up window, so Dad sent Phillip to get the ice cream cones while the rest of us waited in the camper.  When he came back he was carrying eight glasses of coke.

He had asked for eight cones, but the check out girl hadn’t heard him right.  She thought he asked for cokes.  Phillip was too embarrassed to tell the girl she was wrong, so he just took the drinks and brought them out to the camper.  Now what were we going to do?

Dad said he didn’t have any more money to buy ice cream, and we didn’t drink coke because of the caffeine.  We were all hot and tired and cross about the mistake.  It’s funny, but we all remember what happened next differently.  Perhaps Dad told us to go ahead and drink the coke, or maybe Mom told us to pour the pop out and eat the ice.  Whatever they said, I poured my coke out, I was always a goody-goody, but I was sure cross about it.  Not only didn't I get my longed for ice cream, I didn't even have a good drink.  I remember sitting in the back of the camper, pouting, trying to suck on the cold ice, and almost gagging because it still tasted like coke.  Who, after all, could possibly like that flavor?