Fear and loathing at the ice cream parlor

For some reason, Samson was obsessed with going out for ice cream yesterday. Since it was a nice day, we'd planned on taking a walk after dinner to an ice cream place right in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, Jane never took an afternoon nap, and by the time I got home from work she looked ready for a three-state killing spree.

So it became a Sam and Daddy trip. Which was fine. Until we got to the ice cream place. I had forgotten (how, I don't know) that Samson still has a black eye. Which, given his complexion, looks about a thousand times worse under fluorescent lighting.

So here I am with my wounded child buying him ice cream and it felt like everyone there was silently making out a report to Child Protective Services. He, of course, was totally oblivious to all of this and was just focused on getting some Crazy Vanilla, which is basically French vanilla ice cream with food coloring.

An interesting thing about getting ice cream with Samson is that he picks based on color. It makes sense when you think about it. Chocolate may be delicious, but it's just, well, brown. That electric yellow and green stuff on the other hand. That sure looks interesting.

We've thrown away more than a few cones of sour apple, electric mango, and the like because they didn't quite meet his taste expectations [and it seems silly to make a child eat ice cream; green beans, sure, but turbo watermelon chunk?]. All of this has taught me to approach vivid ice cream colors the way that nature uses them on wild animals: essentially as warnings to stay away.

Anyway, Crazy Vanilla is actually pretty good, and we managed to make it out of the shop without anyone asking him what happened. Which is good as that would only have made things worse. I know what happened, but when a friend of ours asked him yesterday, he said: "Um, I fell on the floor. Right Daddy?"

Thanks, Luka.