Tar Heel Sundae?

Every day, I get a call from the Prodigal Roommate during his lunch break. Our lunch breaks are very different. I spend my lunch break eating lunch at my desk. He spends it walking the streets of New York City, trying to avoid getting blindsided by raging taxis and Ukranian Cuisine vendor carts. We’ll chat for a few minutes, normally about the day in pro baseball or what movies we’ve caught recently, but one thing is always a phone call staple.

Mister Softee.

Mr. Softee, who according to Wikipedia is “the largest franchisor of soft ice cream in the United States,” hangs out just outside Spud’s office, enticing busy New Yorkers with ice cream. Sweet, sweet ice cream. A mid-day ice cream cone, usually reserved for 1950’s residential cul-de-sacs or parking lots of public swimming pools, has found a way to convince those who spend their days in business suits to indulge. No matter how serious one’s job is, somehow the good ice cream man has convinced people of all ages that it’s a good time for an ice cream.

And I’m curious.

Walking outside my office at lunch time will do me no good, unless I’d like to tick some people off on Leesburg Pike by playing Human Frogger. There’s no delightful conehead with melting vanilla brains waiting by my door, no sir. But I wonder what it would take to make that happen. Ah-ha!

According to Mr. Softee’s website, he’s got an offer for you! One of the four main sections of the Softee cyberspace? “INVITE US TO YOUR PARTY!”

I sure will!

However, I have some bad news. There are many places that Mr. Softee trucks are available for company picnics, birthday parties et al, but Washington D.C. is not one of them. If I am to party with Softee and Friends, I’m going to have to leave the area, for somewhere else where Softee rolls. Looking at the list, one locale stands out.

Charlotte, North Carolina.

This Chris may not live in Charlotte, North Carolina, but a certain excellently-named college roommate of this Chris certainly does. As for the interwebs go, Chris Nordberg is incommunicado for the week until he gets his laptop fixed. He’s got no personal e-mail and thanks to work restrictions, no access to blogs. Man, what a downer. Good news though, Nordy. I have just the thing to cheer you up.I’m throwing you a party. And Mr. Softee’s invited.

According to this form, all I need to enter is Nordberg’s personal contact information, the event date of his party, the address of the party, and the estimated number of guests. And just for fun, there’s a place for additional comments. Ok, let’s see here. Let’s go with Nordberg’s apartment on May 19th. The party will be from 7:00 to 7:08 pm. The estimated guest count will be one. And as for additional information, let’s go with, “Mr. Softee, if you don’t show up with hot fudge topping, I will kick your cone to the curb.”

How can they say no to this party invite? A belligerent solo ice cream partier!

So let’s say Mr. Softee doesn’t contact Nordberg in advance and just shows up. (We figure that if he does call Nordberg beforehand to negotiate cost it will be the end of the line for this endeavour.) Maybe the Mr. Softee deliveryperson will be an attractive skinny blond girl who has a master’s degree in business and spends her time off the job watching Fox Soccer Channel and drinking Mountain Dew. Would that not be the most awesome “How We Met” story for their future wedding???

And if this is exactly how it goes down, I should get some preferential wedding status. Like I get to sit on a matrimonial throne. Yeah.