Quarters & Ice Cream Scoops
My first job was in an ice cream store, with an old-fashioned soda counter. We didn’t have a soft-serve machine, but we did have hand-spun milkshakes and hot fudge cream puffs. During all my evenings scooping ice cream into cones and cups, I also made banana splits and cherry or chocolate sodas in parfait glasses.
I was fourteen, and it was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I didn’t have a driver’s license, but I did have rollerblades. And since the day I learned to rollerblade, I knew that rollerblades could get you anywhere you needed to go. [Assuming the path was paved, of course.]
The ice cream store was three miles from my house, and I loved being able to get myself to work. My parents just didn’t want me rollerblading home when my shift ended at 10:30 each night. Which was fine. The great thing about rollerblades is that they are easy to throw in any car. My parents were always willing to pick me up, but often they didn’t need to.
Every night all summer, the line for ice cream would wrap around the building. For hours people would arrive faster than we could serve them. Sometimes, if it was a hot enough day, the line was long enough to head down the block. My arms would burn as I scooped cone after cone, leaning far inside the case as the 3-gallon ice cream cartons emptied.
After a week, I learned to scoop ice cream with both hands. You would never survive the line if you didn’t alternate arms throughout the chaos of every evening. The most painful scooping happened when the ice cream was still too hard and solid from the zero-degree deep freeze cooler. When it happened, you’d try to explain that the flavor they chose was too frozen to scoop. The nice customers would choose a different flavor. The worst ones would smile sweetly and say oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind waiting while you scoop. It felt like they enjoyed watching you struggle through each sliver scooped, because their night would be ruined if they tried a flavor other than butter pecan.
The people that were truly evil when it came to their sweet treat would then comment on how it didn’t look as nice in the cup as usual. It was their justification for not leaving even a quarter for you as a tip. You’d smile and think, I’m sorry ma’am, I just destroyed my arm getting that for you. But don’t worry, it was no problem at all. Truthfully though, it never mattered. There was someone else waiting for ice cream, and they were probably a whole hell of a lot nicer.
At the end of each night, when we would all count up our dixie cups full of individual tips, I was usually one of the highest earners. I like to think it was because of my excellent customer service skills, and the way I ran from one customer to the next for the fastest service I could make happen. But truthfully, who knows why. I probably just lucked out with serving a lot of generous people.
Depending on who drove me home from my shift, two things would happen to my dixie cup full of tips for the night. If it was anyone except my sister, the cup would get dumped into the shoebox where I kept all my tips from that summer. But if my sister picked me up, none of my tips would ever make it home. Not the quarters or dollars anyway.
When my sister picked me up, I’d bring her out raspberry or lemon sorbet as my earned free scoop of ice cream for my shift. Then I’d throw my rollerblades in the back and hop into the passenger seat. Her eyes would sparkle with excitement as she asked how much I made that night. As long as it was more than $5, we were off to make our traditional stop before home.
My sister worked a few miles away at a laser tag place with an arcade. We’d spend all my tip money there and play Dance Dance Revolution until we ran out of quarters. If you’re unfamiliar with arcade Dance Dance Revolution, it was like Guitar Hero for your feet. And if you don’t know Guitar Hero, just imagine a game where you need to follow along with precision as different buttons light up.
We’d share the arcade game if other people wanted a round, but we didn’t bother playing anything else. We’d choose different songs to try and master, but we’d always come back to the same one. There wasn’t a trip to the arcade without trying to perfectly match every dance step to that one track.
Almost 20 years later, I can still hear the bubble-gummy lyrics and tempo in my head whenever I’d like. I can still feel standing on the dance pad next to her, waiting for the song to begin so we could try for a perfect score, again and again. There was so much excitement in those moments that inevitably one of us would always end up a half-step ahead. We rarely got a perfect score, but we always had a perfect night.
Looking back, I could have been annoyed that we only ever spent my money, but I never was. I could have refused to always give her my nightly scoop when she picked me up, but I never minded. Instead, I get to have wonderful memories of those summer nights that are still vivid nearly two decades later. Summer nights that may have never happened if I had been selfish.
You don’t always get to keep making new memories with the people you love. At some point, the memories you’ve already made with someone will become the only ones you will ever get. And sometimes in your early thirties, you’ll look back and be thankful that even at fourteen you knew that some things are more important than keeping your quarters for yourself.
