Woman, You Know How I Eat My Ice Cream!

I like ice cream.

I like chocolate ice cream.

I like chocolate ice cream drenched in caramel.

I like Belgian chocolate ice cream with cocoa shavings drenched in caramel.

I like Belgian chocolate ice cream with cocoa shavings drenched in caramel not in a bowl—I take my ice cream straight from the container.

I like to have my wife bring me the container of Belgian chocolate ice cream with cocoa shavings drenched in caramel, after I have yelled, "Woman, not in the bowl! You know how I take my ice cream!"

There are two issues addressed in this post: first, the method in which ice cream is consumed by me and by most other ice cream aficionados—though they usually fail to admit it; second, the fact that I summon my wife by calling out, “Hey Woman!”

My name is “Raging Stallion,” and I’m addicted to ice cream, I’ve been clean for about 12 minutes now. . . . Seriously, there should be a 12-step program for persons who suffer withdrawals when their freezer doesn’t contain the proper percentage of frozen delight.

I apologize now to anyone who has participated (or will participate) in any social event involving ice cream at our house—chances are I topped the ice cream before it ever got to your bowl. If I didn’t, I wanted to and Maleen wouldn’t let me.

Have no fear, though, it’s all sanitary enough. You see, I take special care to honor my wife with the first bowl of ice cream—scrapings from the potentially affected (or infected) areas of ice cream. Ah, sweet ice cream. But it doesn’t stop there. Maleen and I like to doctor up our ice cream just so—well I do anyway. This usually involves chocolate syrup (not chocolate “sauce,” Maleen) if it’s anything but chocolate ice cream and caramel to compliment the chocolate. In the spirit of efficiency, I combine the act of doing dishes (by not dirtying any) and eating ice cream in the extremely functional method directly from the container. No bowl, no scoop, just one spoon. Yes, folks, that’s right 66% less dishes to do—means a cleaner house for me and you!

So now that I have that out on the table (ha, ha, no pun intended), now we address the other issue. To all of you who I have offended in referring to my wife as, “Woman,” I offer the following explanation (not really an apology—just information).

Families enjoy a heightened level of freedom of language. We take additional liberties once we’re over the threshold that we won’t take once we cross over the threshold again to the outside world. This usually manifests itself through inside jokes and unique terms of endearment.

Since I rather enjoy the shock manifested on the faces of polite company when I yell out, “Woman, bring me my ice cream!”; I like to create terms of endearment for my wife that are sensational to others. I like to watch others squirm in the way they do when they’ve heard something they find absolutely offensive, but don’t have the words to say to a host who has uttered such offense. Do I toy with people too much? Probably, but I like to consider myself somewhat of a social experimentationist. Some people recognize this behavior under a different title, “pushing other people’s buttons.” I have to say that because I get deer-in-my-headlights gazes when I say “Social Experimentationist” to people, but “The-Guy-Who-Pushes-Other-People’s-Buttons-to-Check-Out-Their-Reaction Person” seems at least intelligible to most other humans, if not condoned.

Anyway, my wife explains it this way, “I don’t mind it when he calls me, ‘Woman’ because he thinks it’s funny and he laughs at his own jokes. And it makes me happy that he laughs at his jokes. If I thought for one minute that he said it offensively, he wouldn’t be able to use that phrase. But as it is, I kind of enjoy the reaction he gets from other people, and probably from me too. Do I react?”

I once said that at one of my workplaces to the absolute astonishment of a female educator. “If someone called me, ‘Woman,’” she proclaimed, “I’d slap him ‘cross the mouth.” Thank goodness I married Maleen.

So to all you peeps out there who may have heard this term of social-experimentation endearment, now you know why. My secret’s out of the bag—and that’s just fine, I’ve still got ice cream to soothe the slap—when it [eventually] comes.