Child WatchIce Cream: Frozen Custard Treat or Ice Cold Killer?
by Larry St. James, Our Town Staff
The death of 18 year old Samantha "Sammy" Brown last week raised a lot of questions about the way we live, but perhaps the spotlight o' truth's most important focal point has been that frozen treat we call ice cream. To phrase it simply: is ice cream killing our children? I know, I'm thinking a little outside the box here, but look at it this way: if ice cream had never been invented, there would be no ice cream trucks to drive around, and no ice cream trucks means that Sammy Brown is at home right now in her favorite pair of PJs drawing pictures of ponies and calling boys on the phone and Mr. Richard Brown isn't sleeping on the couch in his dealership during his Grief Sale (and if she's alive right now, then my writing this article is just hurtful to her and her family).
See what I'm saying?
On the other hand, perhaps Sammy Brown's tragic death was the best thing that ever happened to us, for it helped us realize the hidden danger sleeping in our freezers. Let's get to know old "friend" (or should I say "FOE") ice cream a little better shall we? I have here in my hand one pint of a rich, creamy premium brand of ice cream. It feels good in my hand. It feels cold. It is luring me in with its song. It is a marriage of vanilla and caramel. I dip a spoon into the custard lake and it feels like greeting an old friend. An old friend who killed a young girl that is. Let's slow things down just a moment and look over here... What's that you say? TWENTY GRAMS OF FAT PER SERVING? Servings per container? Eight.
Now I don't know about you, but most people I know lack even one iota of self control, and yet I'm expected to believe that there exists someone out there who could eat just one eighth of a pint of this delicious custard? Looks like young Sammy isn't ice cream's only target.
Moving right along, how about ice cream's military record, hm? During the end stages of the second World War as Hitler holed up in his bunker with a few associates and a litter of kittens, the only thing that sustained the fuhrer was, you guessed it, ice cream. Mint chocolate chip. That's right. Ice cream: nazi.
What else don't we know about ice cream? Well, let me answer that question with a question: What else don't we know about ice cream? Apparently a lot.
For example, didja know that ice cream was born out of beastiality? It's true. The man responsible for this custardy creation, Gloutern Svensen, was thirty nine in 1639 and living on the coast of Norway in a small town whose name is now lost. From audio and video records of the age, we are able to piece together his Godless tale. Apparently Svensen, a goat farmer and cheese herder, was not getting any younger, a fact his nagging mother constantly reminded him of, and so when his last straw broke, he of hot temper and muscular gluts, grabbed his mother by the scruff of her neck and declared: "I shall marry the next being I see!" Some say what happened next was planned out all along, a plot hatched to spite mother dearest, while 0thers say the same thing, only in different languages.
Svensen stormed out of his home, really more of a cottage than a hut as one surviving witness tells it, and ran smack into, yessiree, a goat. Well young Svensen grabbed the goat by its hind legs, took one final look at his cheese laden home, and raced up to the top of the nearest mountain, Mount Kinderberg. Three months later Svensen arrived at the summit of the mountain (aside from being incredibly tall, Mount Kinderberg lay almost twenty miles from Svensen's house--Svensen would later be quoted as saying, "I really should have thought it out a little more...dragging the goat twenty miles really jeopardized our relationship.").
Once on the summit, Svensen handed the goat a flag featuring a graphic he had designed during his senior year at Manhattan's F.I.T. (almost three centuries before the school was founded!) and watched as his new wife planted the flag, claiming this summit their honeymoon suite. Over the next few days the pair fornicated in an unending stream of obscenity, the likes of which have not been seen since.
With the honeymoon over and their marriage thusly consummated, the pair set off back to the small farm. There were some awkward conversations and lots of gambling. For several days they made their way down the twisty mountain path in an uneventful fashion, and it wasn't until the fifth day that things went from generally okay to really awful. Without warning (unless you count the snow clouds, swirling winds and Valind's threats of "A real badass Nor'easter"), it started snowing. Heavy. Blankets of snow. It was so cold, the snowflakes went to Macy's for down coats! Rimshot! Then there was an avalanche or something and Svensen and his goat wife got stuck and stuff.
Hours passed, and then days. Next thing they knew, the man and goat were celebrating their one year anniversary, an event that, with the exception of the whole being-frozen-in-a-block-of-ice thing, was considered a pleasant affair by all in attendance. One day, after years of being frozen together, Svensen turned to his goat and said, "My darling, it's been years since I've eaten anything and we've had naught to drink but snow water. I'd give anything for a drop of your sweet milk." The goat being a good wife obliged, and turned up a teet. Svensen licked his chops and went in for a nice long drink, yet when he began to suckle, he was greeted not by milk, but by a rich, creamy stream of vanilla ice cream with something called cookie dough in it. Svensen spat it out and demanded an exclamation of his goat friend/lover, but it was too late: the goat wife had died. Her final gift to the world was ice cream (incidentally, her first was the concept of frozen matter).
Always the opportunist, Svensen cut the goat's frozen teet off with a surgical knife (now known as a scalpel, then known as a scelpal), pulled the ice block's emergency release cord, and off he went. It took him only a few days to sell the magical dessert to a local pastry man, and thus ice cream was born from the frozen ashes of smut.
So next time you eat ice cream, think of Samantha's cold, lifeless body, her torso almost fully detached from her legs, and know that with every serving of this cold, lifeless treat, you bury this child further and further into the cold, lifeless ground.
