Outta here!

Lately the ice cream shop has been melting my mind, and not in a good way. So the other day I decided to give my notice and just work till the end of the month, and finish that chapter of my life earlier than expected.

I felt like I was going to have to break up with my boss. I wanted to find the perfect moment, be a man about, and not do it over the phone, but face to face.

I was going to let him down easy, the whole “It’s not you, It’s me” routine.

I thought up this whole story so as not to leave him suspicious that I was in fact leaving because the job was sucking my will to live. I was going to do the ‘complement sandwich’.

Eg. “this job has been a great experience, if I have to scoop one more ice cream I might just cook my face in the waffle machine, but I have really enjoyed working here.”

After two days of brooding I finally told him, ended up just blaming it on the army – “I need some time off before”.

He was completely unfazed.

I can imagine that kind of job had a high turnover of staff, but I thought we had bonded!

Before I finish there the boss is going to milk me for all the hours he can get, but it doesn’t matter coz after that life begins!

Going to go hiking in the hills, camp, eat food from a coal fire, and find an oven, couch and table which mysteriously walked out of my apartment this week. You know, just get back to walking to beat of my own drum.

Ice Cream

Finding a job and a place to live has been great, I move in in a week and I’ve already been working for a week. I really enjoy being a part of the Ben Yehuda back drop. Seeing Birthright groups come and go and satisfying pregnant women’s craving for Snickers ice cream and Coconut sorbet. I have to admit I have started to find the work a bit mind numbing.

Two days ago I did an 11 hour shift. Which means I probably wiped sticky ice cream of the tables 55 times, scooped 123 ice cream cones (give or take) which is about 356 balls of ice cream (give or take), made 14 waffles, 12 milkshakes, 5 take away tubs of ice cream, and 4 lattés (they were for me).

Now after you’ve tasted the 26 different types of ice cream three times, you already feel a little sick, so you need a latte for some savoury. Then your mind starts playing tricks on you. You forget who ordered what ice cream and end up giving whisky flavour to a 3 year old (which is fine, they’ll just sleep well). You forget what language you meant to be speaking to the customer (Hebrew, English or French). You even forget what languages you speak. It ends up sounding like this:

  Customer: Shalom

Me: Errr…

Customer: Can I try the Twix ice cream

Me: Errr…. Weh

Customer: That’s delicious

Me: Tu vous gutey encoure?

Customer: What?

Me: Oh, סליחה, רוצה לטעום, I mean, ah, what?

<then I blame my confusion on the noise>

Me: Sorry the music’s so loud, what can I get you?

Customer: What music?

Me: … (I don’t have an answer) …We don’t have that flavour.

Customer: … (silence) Can I try the mint chocolate chip…

You get the point

I was worried that my mind was going to melt like a little boys ice cream in the Middle Eastern sun, I was worried my mind was going to get smeared all over some hungry kid’s face.

I decided to start playing mind exercises to make sure I don’t lose mine.

When I whipped down the tables I estimated how long the ice cream had been smeared over the table for. There are a lot of factors; temperature, humidity, sun/shade, thickness of the blob, even the sugar content of the flavour.

As I used my finger nails, brute elbow grease, and a thousand sprays from the Windex equivalent I turned physical labour into actuary.

It gets a little worse.

Yesterday I found myself speaking to the ice cream. “C’mon Ferrero Rocher, get in the cone, I’m always so good to you, whenever people ask me for my recommendation you’re my go to guy, why are you being difficult”.

I looked up at the confused customer, and fade out surreptitiously and faded back in with the words of the song playing in the background pretending I was singing it all along…

Besides the worry that I’m losing my mind, I also worry that I might have lost my bandaid in a scoop of strawberry sorbet.

Other than that, I get lots of visitor which is fun, and I think I’ve mastered waffle making.