Going to the Dairy Queen was a big event for my wife, Susan and her siblings. Their family of six would pack into the Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon, drive around St. Paul and look at all of the large homes on Grand Avenue. To top off the Sunday drive, they would stop at the Dairy Queen for an ice cream treat.
Susan’s father Jerry would pull out a small tablet and take the order from each child, “Chocolate dipped chocolate cone, Buster Bar, Hot Fudge Sunday, Chocolate Malt and a Banana Split”. As the kids waited in the station wagon with their mother Julie, Jerry would walk into the DQ, place the order and come back out to the car with six vanilla ice cream cones.
“Sorry kids, but they ran out of everything. They only had vanilla cones left.” There was a minor disappointment, but each kid dove into their vanilla cone. This happened every time
They were treated to the DQ. It took a while to figure out what their dad was doing. The point being, just because a child wants something doesn’t mean a child always gets it.
During the pandemic, the majority of us have left the “Banana Split World” of family gatherings, religious services, and sporting events – for our safety and the safety of others – and has become a “Vanilla Cone” experience of staying home, Netflix and Zoom calls. It’s disappointing and frustrating as we want to get back to the way things used to be – and we will get back to that. However, right now we need to let go of our frustration of not having what we want and embracing what we do have. A vanilla ice cream cone is better than no cone at all.
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was right, “No, you can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you find, you get what you need.”
