One of the little things that I did to make last summer suck a little less was to turn ice cream into an adventure. Pretty much every time we went for a hike, we went in search of a new ice cream place. Bonus points were awarded for a contact-free experience because OBVIOUSLY, but distance? It totally didn't matter. I was willing to drive and drive.
That means we visited pretty much ice cream place in Allegheny County and beyond. It is because of that and additional visits before COVID that I can say with absolute certainty that Kip's > Antney's, Millie's, and literally everywhere else. Don't @ me. I know I'm right.
ANYWAY. The girls rank ice cream places differently than I do. Mila, for example, is nowhere near expert-level in her analysis. If I ask her to pick a super special ice cream place, she picks Turtle Twist in Canonsburg, PA.
Look, there is nothing wrong with Turtle Twist. It's quite a lovely place for roadside custard (... not ice cream, but my children are not experts). In fact, and I will DESTROY a Turtle Sundae given the chance. But Mila orders a Turtle Tail when she's there, which is a chocolate-covered frozen banana.
THAT IS NOT ICE CREAM. AND WE CAN MAKE THOSE AT HOME. THEY AREN'T SPECIAL. PICK ICE CREAM, CHILD. Still, she's entitled to her opinion, no matter how wrong it is. And so, we visited multiple times last year. But then Turtle Twist closed for the winter. There was much sadness when that happened, but as I explained to Mila, a lot of ice cream places close once kids go back to school and the weather chills.
It was with much fanfare that Turtle Twist came back into our lives this spring. Mila has figured out how to ask Alexa the most random of questions, so she knew the exact date the place was opening back up. She had a reminder set and everything, which I'm pretty sure is exactly what the geniuses at Amazon had in mind when they made Echo Dots. Mila insisted we were going on opening day. I negotiated it to the day after because life sometimes doesn't allow for a freakin' long drive just for a frozen banana. It seemed like a reasonable deal.
And then we got there. And Mila was SO excited. I ordered her Turtle Tail. That is a "looking at an actual human" situation, for what it's worth. They don't have a microphone or speaker or whatever, so you pull up to the window, wearing a mask if you aren't a monster, and they write your order down as you say it before handing it out to you through the same window. It's all very quaint.
NORMALLY.
It's not quaint when there's a small child in the back seat who has been thinking about her Turtle Tail for MONTHS and the person at the window is all like, "Sorry we don't have any" and OMG. Mila EXPLODED with disappointment. There was sobbing and she shrunk up into a tiny little ball and she was soooooo sad. Wanna guess how that worker felt? It was quite the extravaganza. I was trying not to laugh because Mila conjured up a whole lot of drama over a FROZEN BANANA OMG, but then there's this woman who was equally dramatic because she felt so bad and Y'ALL. FROZEN BANANAS DO NOT DESERVE SO MUCH DRAMA.
I ordered Mila a substitute item which she complained about the whole way home, but whatever. It all ended with a return trip just for a FREAKIN FROZEN BANANA a week later. And did the woman remember Mila? OF COURSE SHE DID.
The kid could become famous for the drama she can conjure up for a frozen banana.
