PREMIUM ICE CREAM
For some reason today I asked a family member to pick up some chocolate ice cream on the way home. The grocery is a local store not a box chain so I said, just get the store brand, figuring it’s quality. I don’t eat ice cream that often. My grandfather, however, religiously ate chocolate ice cream after dinner, always Haagen Das, but later switched to Kirkland brand for the better deal—because it was premium ice cream. He calculated the density of ice cream by weight and volume; he would never get Breyer’s—“that’s just air.” I remember he taught me to buy sheets the same way—by checking the percale thread count. That’s how you could tell which cost was actually better according to the thread density, or quality. Always maximizing value. Don’t pay for air.
The chocolate ice cream arrived this evening, and it was a generous tub of chocolate Haagen Das.
—Oh, I said, reminds me of Grandpa.
—Someone in the aisle suggested I get the store brand because it’s good but I chose this one.
—Well, that’s the one Grandpa always got.
At age 92 our Grandpa fainted at the wheel of his rusty Ford pickup on Route 12. A tree stopped the truck as he had veered off the road. He was not, in his stubbornly libertarian fashion, wearing a seatbelt, so he slammed into the rather large steering wheel. He broke his jaw, some ribs, damaged his hip. He was in such great shape before the crash he managed to survive a couple more years, but never made it to his goal of 100 due to the accident. At the senior rehab facility I heard, even broken and bruised, he was still catching the eyes of the ladies. While he was testing out walking again after surgery they commented that he was a handsome gentleman—and perhaps a wealthy one at that.
—In the parking lot I helped an old man who looked just like him load his groceries into his car.
—Really?
—He was a vet too, just like Grandpa, but not WW2 and never in combat.
—Isn’t that something.
—Yeah. I told him to wear his seatbelt.
There was a blood moon eclipse the night he passed away. I remember it glowing so full and so red. Last night, too, was a blood moon eclipse.
I guess he misses premium chocolate ice cream!
—written 3/15/25