Bad Roberta Gets Ice Cream

Bad Roberta at the Ice Cream Parlor

 

It was a hot and sultry day. The leaves were hanging limply on the trees, the dogs were panting in the shade, and even Bad Roberta was too hot to be bad. She dragged along listlessly behind her mother, who was trying to get some shopping done. Then she saw it! A vision of heaven come to rescue her in the nick of time. The Basket-Rabbit Ice Cream Parlor.

 

"Mom, Mom," she gasped, "I need ice cream!"

"No, Bad Roberta, I remember what happened last time," her mother began.

"I won't do it again, honest," Bad Roberta said, batting her eyelashes sincerely, "besides, they replaced all the windows and no one was hurt."

Her mother was about to say no, more firmly, but it was a very hot day, and she needed some relief herself. "Well, all right, but be good," she warned, and they entered air-conditioned splendor.

Basket-Rabbit is known for the variety of odd flavors that they sell. Bad Roberta was pondering her selection. "I'll have a sugar cone with, um, chocolate tomato Bavarian cream and, let's see, a scoop of Welsh marmot surprise." The cashier, a skinny unfortunate named Welbert, nodded and reached for a scoop. He put both scoops on and then turned towards the cash register, where Bad Roberta's mother waited with a single scoop of vanilla in a dish. "Wait!" Bad Roberta shouted, "I'm not done." Welbert looked at Bad Roberta's mother, who nodded tiredly. "A scoop of peach yogurt caramel light with hazelnuts. No...make that two scoops. A scoop of, um, persimmon sherbet, and one of royale swiss super chocolate peanut butter macadamia fudge." She paused while Welbert added the four new scoops to the growing stack on the sugar cone.

"A scoop of apple banana parsnip delight, and one of Yugoslav sugar beet with parboiled broccoli." Again the look, and again Bad Roberta's mother nodded, weakly. Bad Roberta continued, while the overtaxed sugar cone began to buckle under the weight of eight scoops of ice cream. Multicolored melting streams of sugary liquid began to ooze over Welbert's knuckles.

"A scoop of fat-free Brazilian strawberry beef and tree fern and a scoop of Rabbit's special carrot and carob swirl. A scoop of..." But we'll never know what the eleventh scoop was to have been, for just then the sugar cone gave up the ghost, showering both Welbert and Bad Roberta's mother with half-melted sticky glop. Bad Roberta had wisely stepped back just in time, and escaped unsplattered.

"Oh mother," she said, smiling sweetly, "I'm so cold now with all the air conditioning that I couldn't eat any ice cream anyway. Let's go to Windy's!"