The Ice-Cream-Shop Diaries

In Wilmington Pool Report #1
Sent: June 16, 2023
12:28 p.m.

The president biked up to Lulu’s Ice Cream in Wilmington and, as his protective detail hovered outside, clopped unsteadily in bike shoes on the hard floor. An aide handed him a $20 bill that he clutched carefully, and he stood at the counter ordering for a long time. Your humble correspondent inched closer to make out the order — a scoop of mint chocolate chip, a scoop of pistachio, and a scoop of vanilla in a waffle cone with whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles, and perhaps another topping that couldn’t be made out.

When POTUS turned around, the pool asked about the once-in-a-thousand-year tsunami that had devastated much of Seattle and the coast of the Pacific Northwest the day before.

As he took care to work the edges of the cone all around to avoid dripping, he shrugged and said, “Could have happened to any administration. Why don’t you focus on the first two and a half years of my term when no tsunami hit at all?”

The pool tried to ask a follow-up, but POTUS interrupted, “And I know waves. You should have seen Corn Pop doing belly flops in the Wilmington public pool back in the day.” He fixed me with an intense gaze, “And I’m not joking.”

POTUS exited the shop.

UPDATE: An aide confirmed that the second topping was chocolate sprinkles, the total cost of the order was $12.83, and POTUS left 17 cents in change in the tip jar.

In Wilmington Pool Report #5
Sent: November 10, 2023
3:37 p.m.

The Beast arrived outside the Tasty Freeze on Route 23 at approximately 3:16 p.m. POTUS exited the vehicle and walked up to the outside counter. His longtime favorite local place, Lulu’s, had been boarded up, and the sidewalk occupied by an encampment of unemployed workers. After some confusion over whether a Biden aide could pay with her Apple Wallet, POTUS ordered a chocolate-vanilla soft-serve swirl in a wafer cone.

As he walked back to the Beast, your pooler shouted a question: “Mr. President what do you say to those economists who argue conditions are now worse than the Great Depression, with the combination of double-digit unemployment and inflation?”

He turned and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I say get educated. Expectations were the unemployment rate would be over 19 percent this month, and instead it stayed at 18.6. That means unemployment was zero this past month.”

“But . . .” the pool interjected.

“Republicans need to stop obstructing and pass the Reducing Inflation Even More Act.”

“Don’t you . . .?” the pool tried to ask.

“I think we’ve turned a corner. The bread lines are getting shorter, and some of the banks are coming out of insolvency.”

POTUS bit a small hole at the bottom of the cone and began sucking ice cream through it before being ushered back into the Beast by an aide.

At Undisclosed Location Somewhere in West Virginia Pool Report #10
Sent: February 16, 2024
5:13 p.m.

Escorted by a security team armed with submachine guns, POTUS made a rare public appearance at an ice-cream shop that the pool was asked by White House aides not to identify for national-security reasons. POTUS used a small plastic pink spoon to taste the butter-pecan, cookies-and-cream, and cotton-candy flavors. He said he was undecided between the butter pecan and cookies and cream, before abruptly changing course and ordering a scoop of mint chocolate chip dipped in chocolate in a cake cone. The pool asked if he could take a question about the Chinese nuclear strike that had destroyed Los Angeles last week. “C’mon man,” POTUS replied while turning the cone sideways as he nibbled at the chocolate coating. “You know most U.S. cities haven’t been obliterated. In the least. And we don’t think they will be. We are winning this war.” He returned to the counter and grabbed a few more napkins. “We’ll be able to rebuild L.A. in a couple of hundred years, anyway.” He pointed to the cone and added, “Some of the best mint chocolate chip I’ve ever had. I’m coming back here.” With that, a security team hustled him off to his waiting vehicle, and the wheels squealed on the pavement as it rushed back to the undisclosed location where he’s been sequestered since the worst attack on the U.S. homeland in its history.

In Town Pool Report #3
Sent: August 24, 2024
2:16 p.m.

There was an eerie quiet on the streets of Takoma Park, in contrast to the panicked buying and isolated looting in the rest of the country. POTUS entered Miss Sweetie’s Ice Cream and Confections, a local legend, trailed only by one aide. POTUS carefully surveyed the varieties of ice cream behind the glass, walking back and forth several times and saying something that the pool couldn’t make out to the aide. Then, he ordered a root-beer float and, when the young woman handed it to him, asked if she had “one of those long spoon thingies.” She handed him one and, when POTUS turned around, the pool asked him immediately if anything can be done, even at this late hour, to intercept or otherwise deflect the asteroid estimated to impact Earth in six hours and destroy humanity as we know it. “Look, this rock was on this trajectory under my predecessor, and he didn’t do anything about it. So we’re doing the best we can, but I didn’t know how badly he’d screwed up the inner solar system.” After pausing to scoop up more vanilla ice cream, he added, “Think about it. Humanity has had a great run. What other species has achieved all that we’ve achieved? It’s amazing. I’m not joking.” Then, he pointed to the float and observed, “The secret is they put ice into the root beer. Keeps it colder so the ice cream doesn’t melt as fast.” He turned back to the counter, asking, “Straw? Can I get a straw?” He returned to the pool sipping the root beer, and the pool asked if he’d been following the intense debate in recent days whether the U.S. should have done more to develop a system of space-based sensors and lasers to use against potential nuclear launches and natural threats such as asteroids. “Look,” POTUS replied, “I remember what my dad told me when I brought home a lesson from school about Pompeii. He said, ‘Easy come, easy go, Joey.’” POTUS turned and pushed his empty paper cup into the trash can and casually walked out the door.