Yes yes, Unstable Alchemy is back from its extended hiatus, and I’m sure you have many questions. Why did I go away? Where have you been? Why am I so devilishly handsome? These thoughts must plague you, but I am sorry to say I can’t answer them. There was a non-disclosure agreement, money changed hands, and teacup pigs were involved. Please don’t question it, you’d just embarrass us both.

No, the question you should be asking is what brought me back. It’s momentous, it’s incredible. It is… the unexpected ice cream.

Dun. Dun. Duunnn?

Let’s back up. For the past year I’ve been living with a roommate. We get along well, which we accomplish mostly by staying out of each other’s way. This weekend, some of her relatives stopped by, and true to form, I tried to be polite and stay out of their way. La de da, they were nice, I heard rummaging sounds coming from the kitchen at one point, and then they left after what I think was an extended game of Halo. Some time after that I emerged from the hovel that is my room to go search for sustenance. I was thinking a sandwich. Maybe even a drink to wash it down. I was feeling terribly ambitious.

That’s when it happened, friends. I didn’t know it at the time, but mere minutes later, I was to have something so much more wonderful that a mere sandwich and beverage. SO MUCH MORE. Ye Olde Roommate heard me poking around, and mumbled something to me sleepily from the couch, something to do with getting too much food for everybody, she wasn’t possibly going to eat it, mumble mumble. Now, this is important, people. You should never mumble when free food is on the line. Why? Here’s why. At first, because of the collusion between her lackluster diction and my questionable ability to parse language, I assumed it was something in the way of extra general groceries. Maybe there was a different kind of cheese to put on my sandwich. Maybe there was a spare beer to go with it. But no, when I asked her to kindly repeat herself, I heard those magic words. Ice cream.

My brain and ears love to play tricks on me. I know this, and take great pains to not get caught in their fiendish traps. The only thing to do was to assume she hadn’t just mentioned a surprise bounty of glorious dairy dessert, and ask where this extra food might be. That way, if she said “vegetable drawer”, I’d know that it had in fact been an evil joke played by my subconscious, and I could construct my sandwich in peace.

But no, she said “freezer”, and that’s when it got real. I had assumed things were real before that, but I was incorrect, because there in the freezer was an unopened pint of ice cream, and she was telling me to eat the whole freaking thing.

I have been many things, to many people, but the one thing I have never, ever been, was a man would say no a lonely container of ice cream. Who knows how long that pint sat in a supermarket freezer, seeing shoppers pass it by day in and day out, seeing all the other ice creams getting taken home by to be enjoyed. For a pint of ice cream, that’s the dream. Then one day, a nice individual, with a kind smile, picked this ice cream up, put it in a shopping cart, and took it home. To not give that poor little ice cream the attention it deserves after it had waited so long… Well. I may not be a saint, but by god, that ice cream was going to get the love it needed.

Plus it was french vanilla mixed with chocolate, swirled with little bits of caramel. That’s not just some back-of-the-freezer charity case, that’s a Premium Frozen Treat. I could tell by the way the label said exactly that. My first bowlful was delicious, and lactose intolerance be damned, I’m going back for more.

Because this is no night for sad little sandwiches.