12/13/2024
Let’s hear it for vanilla ice cream
By LEWIS GRIZZARD
Another group of people in this country who take unnecessary abuse and who are constantly discriminated against are those of us who prefer vanilla ice cream.
We are portrayed as plain, ordinary people who have no flair for the dramatic, no taste for the exotic.
I first became aware that I was considered, shall we say, ''different" when, as a child, the family would gather on Sunday afternoons to make homemade ice cream.
"What flavor should we make?" my mother would ask.
"Strawberry!" one of my cousins would shout
"Chocolate!" another would cry.
"Vanilla,’' I would say, almost in a whisper, as I prepared for the humiliation that would follow.
"Vanilla,” my cousins would chirp. "You want plain vanilla when you could have strawberry or chocolate?"
As my uncle turned the crank, making up another batch of strawberry or homemade chocolate ice cream, I would sit quietly in a lonely corner, my shoulders slumped and my head hanging in the disgrace and disappointment of the moment.
The problem got worse as I got older. I blame Howard Johnson's for this. It was Howard Johnson who came up with something like 28 different flavors of ice cream, which gave those who yet remained faithful to vanilla an even worse name.
No longer did I hear it only from the strawberries and the chocolates, but now I got it from the butter pecans, the peppermints and the tutti-fruttles.
"You want plain, ordinary vanilla when there are 28 flavors to choose from?" they would scoff at me as I moved away from the counter with my white-topped cone, feeling like some sort of unwanted social outcast who had just drunk from his finger bowl.
I began to eat ice cream only when I was by myself, purchasing it in lightly patronized grocery stores to cut down the chance of discovery. I was still unable to avoid the icy stares of the check-out girls and the nose-in-the-air attitudes of the bag boys, however, so I eventually gave up eating ice cream altogether.
But this sad story has a happy ending. I am going to eat my vanilla ice cream and I don't care who knows about it. There is every flavor of ice cream from coffee to creme de menthe today, but I still prefer vanilla to any of them, and it doesn't make me a bud person,' either.
Are those who prefer the rich flavor of chocolate necessarily a group of lazy, shiftless individuals who get fat and then do nothing but lie around petting their poodle dogs? Of course not.
Are those who like the sweet, bright taste of strawberry also less likely to perform well under stress or do well with special concepts? Of course not.
Do people who prefer tutti-frutti still sleep with their teddy bears? Are those who like Neapolitan unable to make a decision?
The answer to both those questions is a resounding "No!" and it is the same with those of us who cling to vanilla.
We aren't plain, we aren't dull, and we aren’t ordinary We simply prefer a straight-up, no-frills ice cream and there are more and more of us every day who are willing finally to stand up and admit it.
Tell 'em to take a hike at the HoJo, my fellow vanilla lovers. We've been in the closet too long.
