August 21: Eat Me

Let's play another round of everyone's favorite home game - The Hypothetical. You have a friend that loves drugs. I mean he really digs them. He's cuckoo for cocaine. He snorts it, sniffs it, and mixes it in with his Ovaltine. He buys it, shoots it, loves it. Suffice it to say, he's addicted. It controls him like a puppeteer. Go here. Do that. Behave this way.

After living this dark lifestyle for a few years, he cleans up his act, gets a sponsor, and goes through the twelve steps toward recovery. Well things are going pretty smoothly for our protagonist. He's got himself a girl, found a decent job, and just officially house broke his new puppy. Things are going great. Great, that is, until he gets hurt at work and needs to get surgery. For one hundred points, should you (A) Offer to watch his puppy while he recovers, (B) Offer to get his groceries while he recovers, or (C) Buy him a gram of cocaine?

When I lived in California, I would go through a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a few times a week. Half Baked, Oatmeal Cookie Dough, Mint Chocolate Chip, it didn't matter. When I moved to Austin, I discovered Blue Bell ice cream. Made in Brenham, Texas they have the most nostalgic commercials; and for good reason. An old man narrates a series of 1960s-styled vignettes about how there are certain things you never forget; the last of which is your first taste of Blue Bell ice cream. Let me tell you - it is the best ice cream I have ever had. As of a month ago, I was going through half-gallon containers of Vanilla Bean in three helpings. I would then find myself back at the store for another go-around.

Enough was enough. "For the month of August," I told myself, "I would refrain from eating any ice cream." How hard could it be? I told myself I would write one blog entry a day for a year and I was still going strong. If I could do that, this would be a piece of cake (without the delicious frozen topping), right? Right???

I had my surgery on Tuesday and a good friend of mine picked me up and brought me home afterwards while she went to the pharmacy to get my medicine. Unaware of my addiction, she also picked up three small things of ice cream. For the next twenty-four hours, all I could think about were those personal cups residing in my freezer. They called my name and begged me to eat them. The first cup lasted one day and all three were gone in three. Seventeen days. I was clean for seventeen days. Sober for seventeen lousy days.

The cups were gone, but so was the streak. A ballpark often sells advertising behind home plate for the viewers watching on TV at home and Dairy Queen took advantage of this space in Miller Park where the Milwaukee Brewers play. Guess where the Padres are playing right now. Guess who had a large Oreo Brownie Earthquake from Dairy Queen today. Guess who is officially off the wagon.

Her heart was in the right place and contrary to how it might read I am extremely thankful for her kind gesture. How can a person complain about a friend buying him ice cream after he just had surgery? It's hard, but so is overcoming an addiction. In our hypothetical scenario, our friend had to steer his ship clear of the cocaine sirens. I tried staying away from America's favorite frozen dessert, but oh how the Blue Bells toll. Let's just hope September is busier than August and can keep me distracted from the freezer section of my local grocery store.