Heavenly, heavenly hash

 I was just rounding the counter to flip the sign from “open” to “closed” at 9:59, Thursday night. It was well into the summer, so the humidity that plagued the store was more of an annoyance and less of a blessed reminder that school was still out. Thankfully, my visor shielded my beaded forehead from view. It also blocked my vision of the boy, about 15, standing just outside the door as I went to lock it, his pudgy palm about to pull the handle open. As soon as I saw him from under the beak of my visor, I let the lock go and motioned him inside. My manager didn’t have to know.

He stepped into the store and hopped from the welcome mat to the next one a metre away in order to avoid the wet floors I’d just mopped. This earned him several brownie points in my books as well as a pat on the back for survival skills. Those wet floors could be deadly.

He smiled shyly at me with his head down. “Thanks for letting me in,” he said. His voice had a tone that suggested he wasn’t used to being an exception to the rules.

He surveyed the ice creams quickly, but didn’t loop all the way around the freezers to see every kind like most. Instead, he settled quickly for heavenly hash. A classic, as well as one of my personal preferences. I grabbed the scoop to start his cone, but the silence resonating in the place became too much. I looked up through the foggy glass of the freezer to see his long face staring at the clock. Most people watched their cones like birds of flight while they were being scooped. It was strange. 

“Long day?” I asked him.

He stuck his hands in his pocket and made a face of distaste, raising the one side of his mouth to the fan above. “Yea,” he began, “I just got stood up at the movies.”

Although I’d already been planning on giving him extra ice cream for his courtesy with my clean floors, I quickly piled on another scoop of sympathy.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, not sure what else I had to offer.

He shrugged, “You win some you lose some, eh?”

I smiled at his attempt at optimism and hoped his self-esteem didn’t take too much of a hit from the night’s events. His round face still scrutinized his mucky running shoes.

With an encouraging smile, I handed him his now very large cone. “I hope this helps,” I told him.

“I’m sure it will,” he sighed.

He left with his heavenly hash piled high and his head held a bit higher. Maybe the ‘heavenly’hash of the cone is designed to bring its consumer closer to the origin. Not that I should encourage using food as a method of solace, but sometimes, it’s just nice to have something that won’t leave you stood up at a movie theatre.