On sweltering days, when the sun is out and the grocery store is having a sweet sale, I will buy a tub of ice cream, the mostly vanilla with hoof prints caramel chocolates scattered throughout, and I’ll feel nothing but great about it.
Once we get home, though, I’m pretty particular about the means by which that tub will be reduced of its contents, and let me tell you, my way differs appreciably from that of the one with which I live.
She is the hockey team. I am the zamboni driver. She flies across the ice, knocking heads, chasing the puck and doing whatever it takes to get it in the net. I smooth what remains, readying the tub for the next period.
She is the truffle pig. I am a precocious piglet. She hunts efficiently for the treats, exacting in on their location with pinpoint precision, leaving behind a battleground. I comb through the vanilla delicately, methodically and steadily, happening upon one of the rare chocolate treasures when it is materializes of its own volition after patiently waiting to be discovered.
She is the bomber pilot. I am the minesweeper. She drops her ammo into the heterogeneous melange, always coming out with a confirmed kill. I pick up where she left off, trudging through the creamy field to disarm the peanutty goodness that remains.
She eats as she does, and I as I do, and together, the ice cream disappears as it should, into our gullets. In the end, our respective techniques are immaterial. We are both sated and finally ready to drift together through the dream world, where we rest, until the next day, the next sale, the next contradictory dessert consumption.