Here are the things I've learned while working at Snoasis, a lovely little snow-shack that gets roughly 300+ customers a day. Easily.
1. So many people are impossibly redundant. I'm talking about the population who insists on ordering Coconut and Pina Colada on one snowcone. PEOPLE. Are you aware that Pina Colada is, flavor-wise, like 75% coconut?!? And Coconut and Tiger's Blood too. Tiger's Blood is, like, at least 50% coconut. I promise. Taste it by itself. It'll taste no different if I add coconut. Seriously.
2. The whole color-gender thing is so much more psychologically present than I ever realized. I mean, sure, little 4-year-old boys asking for a blue straw and grimacing when they get a pink or purple straw is understandable--indicative of the ridiculously petty gender norms society forces upon children at an appallingly young age, but nonetheless understandable. But, seriously? An 18-year-old guy, scraggly beard and all, asking what color the Cotton Candy flavor is, and ordering it only after we assure him it's blue? COME ON, MAN. Nobody's gonna make fun of you for being femmy if they see you with a pink snowcone. And I promise you, not one person is going to pass you and say, "Wow, he is one manly, masculine, macho man," when they see you carrying a blue snowcone. It's time to face reality, sonny.
3. 8th graders don't want the snowcone. They just want to tell the unsuspecting girl at the cash register a false name and hear you, after the snowcone's been made, yell "DICK!" at the top of your lungs out the window. Sorry, boys. I didn't fall for it the last forty times, and I'm not falling for it again.
4. Missionaries are truly celebrities in Utah County. No matter their widely-known missionary rules and guidelines, thirteen-year-old girls will still flock to them, crowding and flirting their braces off. Though we're ecstatic to see the Elders stop by, too. Just a little less forward about it.
5. Spelling a kid's name right on the first try earns you tips. Trust me.
6. Making snowcones all day sounds like a cushy job, doesn't it? That's what I thought too. BUT I WAS WRONG. My back aches, my feet scream at me all day long, my head pounds and my ears ring from the roar of the ice shavers, and my voice is gone from yelling at pushing, screaming, mobs of children for seven hours a day. But I'll tell you one thing--I certainly sleep well at night, now.
Anyways. In two days, I leave on a months-in-the-planning road trip to camp on the beach with some best pals in sunny Southern California. Give me palms and beaches and sunburns and nothing to do but write and read and play in the waves, without a snowcone in sight.
Sister -- Mumford & Sons
there are so many things i like about this post.
ReplyDeleteoh snoasis. always bringing on those laughs.