29 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Lesson 18

 Lesson 18

If there is one thing I love more in the world than swimming, its ice cream. Ice cream is the epitome of perfection to me, no matter how bad a day is, if I’ve had ice cream - It was a good day.

Unfortunately my abundant love for ice cream makes ice cream is my weakness. If there is ice cream, I cannot help but eat it, every part of me cries out “MUST EAT ICE CREAM!” and everything else but ice cream is forgotten.

It’s a good thing I’m not a super hero. Superman’s weakness was kryptonite. At least that isn’t something you see every day, so he didn’t have to worry about it all the time. Me, I would constantly have to be on guard, I would be about to save a child from a burning building and see the ice cream melting in the fridge and go to save that instead!!! I would be a terrible super hero!!!

So it’s a good thing I’m not one. (This however, takes nothing away from my super-nijaness)

Anyway, over the summer I went to a camp in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. For those of you who do not know Lancaster is not pronounced LAN (like the word BAN) -CAST-ER but rather LANK (like the word bank)-ESTHER (Like the name).

People always pronounce the name wrong so I thought I would help you out by improving your knowledge of towns and their pronunciation.

“This lesson has been brought to you courtesy of the number 29”

Okay, I watched too much Sesame Street when I was little, I admit it!

Back to my story though, I attended a camp in Lancaster (I see how you all just pronounced that in your head!). In Lancaster (or nearby Lancaster) is Turkey Hill Farm. In case any of you did not know Turkey Hill is a brand of ice cream, good ice cream. And since we were so close to the factory where they made the ice cream, every day fresh made ice cream was brought to the camps cafeteria.

Giant gallon tubs of fresh ice cream were brought every day in different flavors, I could not let an opportunity like this go to waste. So I ate ice cream.

Every day after I finished eating lunch, I would walk eagerly over to the freezer and stare in to see what flavors there were that day. Then I would pick up a scoop and a bowl and dish myself a pretty large serving of ice cream.

By the time I finished eating my ice cream it would be time to go and we would clear our dishes and head out of the cafeteria.

 One day in particular they had a flavor that I loved. I don’t know what the flavor was, but it was chocolate with peanut butter, caramel, chocolate chunks and marshmallow swirls. It was everything I could have wanted in an ice cream and more.

I finished my dish of ice cream and everyone was starting to clear out, but I wasn’t done. I needed more ice cream.

I walked over to the ice cream freezer and quickly started scooping the cold treat into the dish.

“What are you doing?” my friend Maddie asked me, “We are supposed to be leaving!”

“I know, but I need more ice cream!” I replied

She laughed, “Well, hurry up because the cafeteria is about to be empty.”

I shut the freezer, walked over to the table and picked up my stuff. I walked over towards the door where a lot of people were still standing and stuffed as much ice cream in my mouth as I could with each bite. The cafeteria was nearly empty now. It was just me, Maddie and two other stragglers.

“Just put the dish on the conveyor belt!” Maddie told me

(There was a conveyor belt were we put our dirty dishes that brought them into the kitchen to be cleaned.)

My heart broke a little, “I can’t, then I would be just throwing this ice cream away! And it’s perfectly good ice cream.”

Maddie shook her head, “Okay I’ll help you finish it!”

She grabbed a spoon and started shoving ice cream in her mouth too.

Between the two of us we managed to get it down pretty quickly, however, by the time we finished there was no one in the cafeteria.

“We are going to be late to chapel!” Maddie yelled as she ran out the doors, “Hurry!”

I ran after her and the two of us fled down the sidewalk to chapel like there were hounds at our heels.

Suddenly, I was airborn, flying through the air with all the grace and power of an eagle. Then I hit the ground and somersaulted, then rolled down the sidewalk before coming to a rest right behind the heels of one of our camp leaders.

“Are you alright!!?!” I heard Maddie gasp as she ran over to me, “You flipped over so many times!”

The camp leader to was concerned, “Did you hit your head?” he asked

I was still dizzy from spinning, but for some reason (maybe it was from all the sugar I had shoved down my throat in the last few minutes) I found this situation extremely hilarious.

I started laughing, “HAHAHAHA I just FLEW and then then rolled around on the ground, HAHA it was like one of those HAHAHA blooper shows were people are always doing dumb things!”

I was laughing so hard tears were running down my face, my sides hurt but I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Is she okay?” the leader asked Maddie

Maddie nodded, “Yep she’s fine, this is normal for her.”

For some reason this made me laugh even harder.

Maddie pulled me to my feet and handed me my bible which I had dropped mid-flight.

“Come on, now we are really going to be late.”

I was still laughing when our group leader walked out all worried wondering what had taken us so long to get here.

She looked at me and then at Maddie.

“Do I want to know?” she asked

Maddie shook her head.

I only laughed harder.  

Lesson Learned:

Don’t go back for seconds of ice cream, not only will it make you late for chapel, but it will upset your mental balance.