Dip Cones Might Just Be The Answer

So we are well into week two of the Covid-19 quarantine. Actually, at our house, it is closer to week three for me and week six for Evans. He had a knee replacement on February 17. Other than trips to physical therapy, he was inside for two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, we went to a party where we, and everyone else attending, got the flu. (You can’t make this up.) So, we are at week three for me and week six for Evans.

I spent the first week when this was ramping up in complete and intentional denial. I could not believe that anything would force the American people into their homes, close schools, restaurants, businesses, etc… It wasn’t until I went to the grocery store and I was the only person not acting like it was a zombie apocalypse that I realized maybe I was not paying the right kind of attention.

I posted on Facebook asking if I was crazy or if everyone else had lost their minds. My friend Deborah Lovett provided a very clear response that yes, my head was in the sand (or up my backside) and then she provided several links to stories about people in Italy stuck in their homes with the corpses of their loved ones. I did the reasonable thing and burst into tears.

A few days later, Evans said, “You should do a blog post.” Being a writer who had neglected her blog, my response was, “The last thing anyone wants is another blog post about this nightmare. I have nothing, NOTHING encouraging to say.” Then I burst into tears again. Evans did the only thing he could think of. He put me in the car, took me for a drive, and bought me a Dairy Queen dip cone (via the drive-thru of course.) People, a DQ dip cone will not fix everything, but in my experience, every possible crisis is mitigated by a dip cone.

My dip cone cure began in 1998 when my father was gravely injured and being cared for at Centennial Hospital. My uncle brought me a dip cone from the onsite Dairy Queen. Soft-serve vanilla with a waxy chocolate topping that had to be eaten systematically and intentionally was enough to distract me for five whole minutes. Over the next two years, as my father’s condition worsened, I drove a million miles between Nashville, Harriman, and Greeneville. At some point on each trip, I had a dip cone. It changed nothing, but it made everything better for just a minute.

I realize that dip cones are not really the answer to this scary time. Neither is baking, or binge-watching The Good Place, or cleaning out closets. But, those are good things. Those are things that we forgot that we love to do. I showed Langley a video of The Carol Burnett Show skit where Tim Conway talked about the Siamese elephants. She had never seen it. She laughed until she cried. I love to play Pente and haven’t played since Mother died. Langley is not yet wiping the board with me as Mother did, but it is only a matter of time. We have a puzzle set up in our house for the first time in years. When did we stop doing puzzles? I love puzzles.

We can’t change any of this. We can’t “fix it.” But we can reconnect. We can remember to laugh. We can find ways to be kind. We can find all the things we have forgotten we loved. We can get through whatever is next, one dip cone at a time.