Gretchen to the Ultra Max
Somewhere around the time “Tropical Hot Dog Night” played on the iPod headphone in my right ear—the left earbud swinging in exposed roots below—I said to my mother, “Man, I could go for an ice cream.” I had already dug out one bush in the front yard, planted a purple rhododendron (or rhody, as Sue calls the flower I loved seeing in yards around town so much that I bought one to call my own) in its place, and was heroically attempting to extract a second, stronger bush by the roots during afternoon yard work. After much teeth gnashing, I held the defeated stump in the air as a means of signaling victory to Harry.
Once I’d laid down six bags of black mulch, I drove to Sue’s thinking our original plan to get ice cream might still be in the cards. Unfortunately, I’d arrived an hour later than expected so we shared an oversized chocolate cookie instead while pondering if a local garden grifter had stolen two plastic pink flamingos from one of her flower beds. (We ultimately blamed the most likely suspect: the asshole wind.) It was unlike me to crave the stuff, but I announced to Sue that, following the recent recommendation of a local restaurateur, I’d be visiting a beloved nearby creamery after dinner.
“I’d like a large grape nut in a to-go container please,” I told the teenage girl. “With hot fudge!”
“Will that be all?”
“Yep.”
She brought the cup to the window. Where was the paper bag it belonged inside?
“That’s seven dollars.”
I presented my Capital One card.
“We have a ten-dollar minimum for credit cards.”
I’d checked Yelp prior to my departure and confirmed the place accepted plastic, never expecting a minimum, especially since it wasn’t posted on the enormous white signs beside the ordering windows.
“I don’t have any cash.”
“Did you want to order anything else?”
“No,” I said flatly. “That’s why I ordered what I ordered. I don’t need anything else.”
“Oh. Uh.”
“You won’t take a debit card?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Okay. Thanks!”
I walked to my car disappointed but not angry since another local hotspot was only a few miles away and I had the new Miranda Lambert CD to accompany me.
Arriving at my subsequent destination suggested these patient cardholders knew where to buy their full fat creamy cravings on credit. A line of fifteen or more people occupied the parking lot. Pulling into a spot, I called Harry to explain what had happened, but mainly to solicit a third recommendation (she said to withdraw cash from the nearby credit union and return to the creamery out of spite, but I declined).
Overtaken by the frozen frenzy, I dialed Sue and she immediately picked up.
“Uh, hello,” she said in a humorous tone. “Is everything okay? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. But I have a story I just have to share. It’s about ice cream.”
We don’t talk often, but this was serious. As any regular reader knows, ice cream is one of Sue’s favorite reasons for being alive. I knew she’d empathize with my quandary.
“I’m gonna prank call them once a week after this,” I told her. “‘Yeah, I want an eleven-dollar ice cream because I can’t access cash. Ever. And no, I don’t want two separate mediums. I want a double large ice cream!’”
The creamery is known for being canine-friendly, hence my next round of incisive savagery about their deceptive business practices.
“They couldn’t even give my order away to a dog because it was smothered in hot fudge. Why not a five-dollar minimum? Then again, who orders an ice cream alone? I was the only person there by myself. The lonely asshole who doesn’t have cash or anyone else to get an ice cream with on Saturday night. Fuck me. I’m gonna go to Friendly’s.”
Opting for a large pistachio with hot fudge and whipped cream, I paid seven-fifty and earned some credit card points in the process. A cruddy navy blue sedan pulled out of the Wendy’s lot in front of me, driving below the speed limit until I passed it only to reach a yellow light. I watched the sedan take a left on a green arrow while I could sense the whipped cream melting into the green pile propping it up, the maraschino cherry drowning in dairy decomposition.
As I approached South Road, another yellow light flashed red a second too early. Ms. Lambert sang a song called “Pursuit of Happiness” that began with a line about feeling heartbreak in Maine. What the fuck, Universe? Then I hit another yellow turning red.
“Maybe I should’ve ordered an individual cup of each topping they had to get it to ten,” I’d told Sue fifteen minutes prior, thinking my Hypothetical Ice Cream Debate Team Self had a point. Until he didn’t. “But there’s NO TRANSPORTATION COST! The creamery makes the ice cream fifty feet from where they hand it to you. IT’S SEVEN DOLLARS! I’M OVERPAYING! FUCKING GIVE IT TO ME!” Then again, that’s why I don’t debate myself unless everyone is asleep.
Ready to head inside, smoke a joint, and take a trip to pistachio paradise, the mood lifted on its own accord: I spotted a rabbit chewing on something in the yard and briefly watched it dine. After spotting two of them on a walk Sunday followed by another on Monday, I’d seen a bald eagle swoop over the highway near Easthampton on Thursday. Mother Nature was rewarding me for planting one of her own.
I texted Sue that I decided to name my rhody Gretchen and she texted back, “Would that be Ms. To The Ultra Max?”
When Sue was a teenager, she and her cousin couldn’t say “bitchin’” in front of their elders, so they subbed “gretchen” in its place, often conveying recommendations like how a new Mötley Crüe album was “gretchen to the ultra max.” The eighties were as righteous as FOX News wants you to believe they were.
Planting my new floral fox, spotting a rabbit, and eating a well-earned sundae while baked out of my mind during a Yankees victory wasn’t worth seven bucks, but what about seven-fifty on a card? As gretch as a tropical hot dog night, like two flamingos in a fruit fight. Now WHERE did they go?!