{"id":882,"date":"2013-07-23T18:45:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T23:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=882"},"modified":"2013-07-22T19:18:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-23T00:18:59","slug":"sprinkles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=882","title":{"rendered":"Sprinkles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sprinkleEye\"Inspired by real-life events<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Bob shuffled closer to the head of the line, slapping at a mosquito that buzzed near his head.\u00a0 Sweat trickled down his back, despite the fact that the sun had set hours ago.\u00a0 Ahead of him, two teens shoved each other in a good-natured argument over who would pay for the sundaes they had ordered, then moved on.<\/p>\n

A woman stepped up to the window and launched into a long order of cones and dishes of ice cream for her family waiting back in the car.\u00a0 Bob leaned back and looked up.\u00a0 He wished he could see the stars, but the yellow-orange glow of lights under the ice cream stand eaves turned the night sky into a black smear.<\/p>\n

Finally, the woman was done and Bob stepped up to the window that glowed cheerfully in the night.\u00a0 It was surrounded by countless signs, haphazardly hung, advertising various kinds of frozen treats – shakes and floats and sundaes and dozens of flavors of ice cream, soft and hard, as well as things no one in his right mind would order at such a place, like hot dogs and hamburgers.\u00a0 Cold air from the air conditioned interior washed out over him as he neared.<\/p>\n

“What’ll you have?” asked the clerk, a tanned young man in a backwards baseball cap and faded varsity football t-shirt with the sleeves torn off.<\/p>\n

“What kind of … sprinkles do you have?” Bob asked.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got chocolate and rainbow,” the clerk replied.\u00a0 He reached up to swing his hat around so the brim faced forward.\u00a0 “And sprinkles that taste of a kiss once offered but never taken.\u00a0 Sprinkles that taste like spiritual awakening and sprinkles that taste like the tears of your enemies.”<\/p>\n

The boy looked around the cool, cluttered interior of the shop, reminding himself of his inventory.\u00a0 “We have contentment sprinkles and fame sprinkles.\u00a0 Sprinkles that taste like opportunity missed and sprinkles that taste like wealth.”<\/p>\n

He paused and peered under the counter, and Bob heard a rattle as he shook a plastic container.\u00a0 He straightened, took off his hat and fanned himself.\u00a0 “And it looks like we still have a few sprinkles that taste like what you thought you’d do when you grew up, back when you were a child, and just one serving that taste like the best things you thought you’d end up doing when you were a teenager.”\u00a0 He put the hat back on, and spun it backwards.\u00a0 “So what’ll it be?”<\/p>\n

“Well,” Bob said after a moment.\u00a0 “I’ll go with chocolate, I guess.\u00a0 I was going to have peanut butter ice cream, and I don’t think any of those other would really go with it.”<\/p>\n

“That’s true,” said the clerk, and reached for his scoop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by real-life events Bob shuffled closer to the head of the line, slapping at a mosquito that buzzed near his head.\u00a0 Sweat trickled down his back, despite the fact that the sun had set hours ago.\u00a0 Ahead of him, two teens shoved each other in a good-natured argument over who would pay for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-writing-things","category-metaphor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}