Last night my lovely mother and I grabbed some food and then enjoyed an after dinner froyo at our favorite frozen yogurt place Mae Pearl's. (For the record, whenever I saw "Pearlin'" this is what that means.) Let me just say that frozen yogurt beats ice cream for me anyday. We arrived at 6:30ish and stayed til 8. I got a complimentary Mae Pearl's tshirt. The back says "Seize the Freeze." My friend who is a yogurt clerk there clocked in and smiled at me as he served the evening stream of college kids. I live in a college town which has it's pros and cons, one of the cons being a bombarding of the froyo place at 7 in the evening. They filled up a whole table..
As you can see, they were everywhere..haha. I'll be in their position soon, just hopefully not at their college..
To continue, I enjoyed a Mango yogurt with blackberries, strawberries, granola (lots of it), and nerds candy. I like to get freaky with my froyo. My mother enjoyed a cheesecake, caramel, strawberry, and more caramel creation. While we were relaxing in the warm, cheerfully lit shop, a pair of young parents came in with their children. They were young kids, about 3 and 4. The little boy was the elder brother with sandy hair and little red rainboots. He was the sweetest little thing. His sister had a chin-length blonde bob with a pink bow and flowery jeans. Her father carried inside and the shop is decorated for Halloween with pumpkins scattered around, spiderwebs around the yogurt cups, ghosts above the yogurt machines. The little girl was wide-eyed and said to her father, "This is scary.." Her brother looked at her and said reassuringly, "It's pretend, silly. It isn't real." Then, she was fine.
This touched me. As the tart mango yogurt melted on my tongue, I pondered this. The brother wasn't scathing or cruel. Just supportive. Just assuring his baby sister that what seemed frightening wasn't real at all and that things were only pretend. If only this could be like real life. If only everyone had an older brother to tell them that, "Things aren't so scary, sis. It's just pretend." I decided I immediately liked that family. They left before my mother and I did.
I have also decided that, like my friend, I want to be a yogurt clerk. Forget college and student loans and grades and scholarships and essays and applications. I want to work at a place like Mae Pearl's with the yogurt machines emanating a constant hum and people perpetually streaming in and out with plactic spoons in their mouths and "Thank you"s and the bold colored paintings of cows and bubbles on the walls and the odor of fruit and candy. Why not want that? Sometimes I'd like to revert back to the simple things. College is the path I'm going because that's what society tells us we need. Economy equals bad, college equals more money. But why not go against that and be a poor, poverty stricken, yogurt clerk?
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