BoomerGirl Diary

My family loves ice cream. When we eat it, invariably, at some point, one of us will look up from our bowl, and say, dreamily, “I could eat a gallon of this stuff.”

Sadly, no one ever offers you a gallon; even seconds are considered greedy. Ice cream is supposed to be a treat, something enjoyed in moderation, once in a while.

But one day last summer, the planets were aligned just so, and my husband and I found ourselves shivering in the frozen foods section on the very last day of the Breyers 2-for-1 sale. Double the amount of the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods, for just half the price? To our knowledge, we had never seen this offer before, and, I might add, we’ve not seen it since. The gods were speaking directly to us, and it was clear that this ice cream was part of a grander plan.

In a fever, we loaded our cart with four containers, the most that we — two adult medical professionals — could justify, not to mention that it was all that would fit in our small freezer. Even at 2-for-1, it was $11 worth of fat and sugar.

To make up for this splurge, we returned a loaf of fancy whole wheat bread, a jar of organic peanut butter, and a box of Band-Aids to the shelves. Fiber? Protein? The assurance of a well-healed cut? Inconsequential! A dream was within reach — that was all that mattered.

Back home, we stared into the freezer, giddy with anticipation.

“Girls,” we said to our daughters, “prepare for the Great Ice-Cream Eating Contest.” We would find out, once and for all, who could really eat a gallon of ice cream. As a disclaimer, I’d like to point out here that our daughters were both over 16 and legally able to marry in most states — so encouraging them to consume an entire half-gallon of ice cream at one sitting (in place of an evening meal) wasn’t really bad parenting.

Not really.

The competition began at sunset on a Sunday with each of us tearing into our personal half-gallon, scooping out the largest bowls imaginable — truly an embarrassment of riches. We dug in like hogs at the trough, eyes alight with the possibility of finally, for once in our lives, getting enough ice cream. We chatted in an animated fashion, anticipating our future role as official spokesfamily for the Breyers corporation.

My daughters and I started to slow a bit as we reached the end of our first bowl, but my rail-thin husband, “the house that Big Mac built,” continued to power it down. Volume, not speed, was the goal, but still, an urgency started to build. We raced to the kitchen and refilled our bowls. Halfway through the second bowl, I began to feel queasy.

“She’s out!” they said, as I threw in the spoon. Both girls proceeded to hit the wall as well, one crying out, “Brain freeze!” and clutching her mouth, the other dropping her bowl on the counter in postprandial exhaustion.

We watched in fascination as my husband forced down bite after bite, going back for bowl after bowl, emptying one carton and starting on another, before finally calling it quits. Half an hour later, he lay bloated on the couch, moaning and holding his stomach, faintly trumpeting his status as “Winner and Champion Ice Cream Eater.”

We sat dazed in our living room, sky-high blood sugars now crashing, mouths and brains frozen nearly solid. We had finally — finally! — eaten our fill. The rankings were posted, the champion anointed. My daughters and I had fallen far short of that dreamt-of gallon, but my husband grabbed that brass ring as he slid slowly by it on a pool of melting mint chip. Supper was abandoned.

There was complete abstention from ice cream for the next week or so. Breyers didn’t call; there was no media frenzy. In place of ice cream, we ate … cereal. For a time, there was calm. But eventually, our icy mistress called us back and, once again, a single gallon of Breyers sits in the freezer, silently waiting.

Now, though, we eat it in moderation, absent the grandiose claims. We eat it quietly, thoughtfully, savoring each swallow. Like all lovers, we had discovered that in any relationship, there is such a thing as “enough.”