What with all the fuss recently in looking for a problem to be solved by declaring Pluto to not be a planet, you're probably eager for news about my ice cream habits. I don't eat so much ice cream as I might, partly because I somehow never really formed an evening snack habit, and also because I don't have a dishwasher here. That encourages the bad habit in me of not doing things that need new glasses or bowls or silverware if I can help it, which is fine for soda -- I can buy a half-liter bottle and that's fine for evenings -- but not so good for a half-liter of rocky road.
The way around this for ice cream is disposable plates and spoons, but plastic spoons are only good for the softest ice cream, and mine never stays that soft. So I went to the Big Store, which is that sort of unfocused superstore so popular in the United States and so rare here. Most stores focus on a narrow genre of items. This is about the only place I can go past the overly expensive flat TVs, past the furniture, around the kitchen appliances, around the computer games, and into kitchenwares.
I got a pretty nice-looking scoop, with scizzor-like legs to squeeze together to make the cross-bar sweep across the cup. Back home, on the second scoop, it shattered, with the bar's axle not attached to the legs anymore. So this afternoon I went back to the cash register where I bought it, and was told where Customer Service was, which was back past everything and out into the mall and past the food court.
In front of the Customer Service desk was an elderly man who, after I'd turned the wreckage of the scoop over to the clerk and began waiting for her to find a replacement, asked if I would like any wine. That sounded rather higher-class than I expected -- a cup of water I'd expect, soda if they wanted to show off their wealth -- but it turned out he just sells bottles of wine from the spare area in the Customer Service center. Despite this ominous implications associating Customer Service with large amounts of alcohol, the clerk's expedition returned with a new scoop in a little while. After both she and I tested the replacement scoop on the air I took it home, and next time I remember to have ice cream I'll learn if it's fixed.
Trivia: King John of England granted a charter, founding Liverpool, on 28 August 1206. He had picked the location that summer. Source: 365: Your Date with History, WB Marsh and Bruce Carrick.
Currently Reading: Famous First Flights That Changed History, Lowell Thomas, Lowell Thomas Jr.