Lick the Ice Cream

Dear Editor,

I was raised to share. I can remember as a lad when I had my buddies over to help me celebrate my birthday. The cake was always cut into enough pieces so everyone could have a piece… When there was ice cream during those years we shared that too….

I have to admit I got some real enjoyment out of being the host and in charge of scooping the ice cream. …. I got to lick that little extra that stuck to the back of my little hand as I pulled that scoop through all that thick real homemade ice cream. Boy, those were the days. We boys ate the cake and ice cream and then dove into my gifts… those were times of ‘Aplenty’. Slingshots were the best toy a kid could get…. But that was years ago…. 

I’m here now and I’m in a bit of a fog. I have shared everything with my cute little peanut of a wife and she, of course, has shared everything she got from me with her family… I don’t know how many of those rascals there are but it seems like everyone gets their share… My concern is the Ice Cream… When do I get to lick some of the ice cream? Am I being paid back for those years of skimming? Do you think there is a karma in this country…. I feel like all I do is to scoop the ice cream without the least bit to lick. There is never any stuck to my knuckles like before…. Can you advise?

Sincerely

Jimmy Blinkmoore 

……………..

Dear Jimmy,

Surely you are American. We have never heard so much dribble without substance in all our days at the inkwell…. You have babbled on and now we are to untangle all that before we can respond in a most helpful way. 

You are a farang here for the first, second, third or possibly fourth time…. you are into your second, third or fourth house… The number of cars espoused about is unfathomable and now you are wondering what has happened. You have but a handful of toys left? 

All those years spent with the boy band have done you no good… Or perhaps being American you should have archived your passport until which time you learned that there is another world out here…. We in the office are laying bets that your new ‘Land of Smiles’ family is larger than an eight slice cake and perhaps a gallon of home made…. And now you are flat broke without money enough for a return trip…. Don’t worry. … We have good news… 

This is the Land of Smiles where you can be anything you want to be.  We suggest you change your identity…. a makeover. A Jason Bourne thing…Re-identify yourself….. A birthday wish to yourself … You can be anything you want to be in the land of smiles ….. Pick a new identity. We did…. We picked ‘Editor’ and then blew out the candles. …. See how this works…. 

A cheerful lot

Editors