It’s all true
I was there
I saw it happen
There’s a queue in the ice cream shop. We don’t mind waiting. We stand, self-marshalled, drooling as we make our selections.
A sudden presence announces arrival. Heavy footfalls, a bustling, now a careless bump flings me sideways. A large person, female, strides to the front of the queue, pauses, changes course. Now she bustles around the counter and takes up a position behind the counter. The ice cream lady, a year-twelve student, looks up from her scooping, amazed. Big Bertha, a good deal taller and twice as wide as the young woman, looks myxoedematous, has no eyes for Ice Cream Girl. Her gaze rests on the ice creams silent in their steel canisters. Ice Cream Girl opens her mouth to speak, to remonstrate. No sound emerges. The intruder now bends forward, her heavy breasts pendulous above pistachio cream and French vanilla. Ice Cream Girl looks around, searching for higher authority, but there is none. She summons a frown, takes half a step forward, squeaks indignantly.: ‘Excuse me! You can’t…”
The large woman gives no heed. She opens her wet mouth, draws in a breath, then spits. A generous volume of spittle volleys widely, showering upon pistachio, vanilla, and burned caramel. My intended choice was caribbean cacao; leaning forward, peering, I can’t see any fresh saliva layering the cacao. But can I trust it?
Meanwhile, the moving spitter, having spat, moves on. With a graceful sway of the hips she rounds the counter, bears for the doorway, and is gone.
howardgoldenberg 
Very unsettling. Imwill look at ice cream shops very differently from now. I just looked up myxoedematous.
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Hello gallivanter
Myxoedema is one of the syndromes of an under active thyroid gland
I chose it as much for its mysterious music as for its meanings,viz., sluggish, swollen, overweight, coarse of hair and facial feature, constipated, intolerant of cold,and DEPRESSED
Of course it was simply the cruel exercise of poetic license
I never measured her resting pulse, I never took her history, I never fondled her goitre
Goitre fondling , like pap testing,is best done behind closed doors
Not when in pursuit of pistachio ice cream
Hg
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Strange and unsettling, I feel for Ice Cream Girl, remembering my first few days working (untrained) in a big psychiatric hospital. I had to look up myxoedematous.
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Good morning good Hilary
My own reactions included sheer wonder, admiration almost, at the capriciousness and the boldness of the incursion
I chose ‘ my oedematous’ for the psychological potential
Also i confess I do love the esoteric feel of the occasional obscure term
Warmly. HG
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At least you saw it happen, and didn’t come in later and buy a burned caramel cone!
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Who knows?
A little bit of body fluid might deepen and enrich the flavour
Or not
Hg
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Perhaps it could lead to a new flavor– Godiva Saliva
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Godiva brings improper (and possibly ahistoric) images to mind
That’s my idea of cool confection!
In this tiny town of collarenebri the very very eccentric general store sells water pumps,school exercise books, Xmas gift wrapping and….
Norge. Vaz icecream
The same brand the thyroid deficient lady spat into
Now Norgen Vaz was important to the bergs back in 1981
It was kosher and situated at the halfway point between our house in Doncaster and my parents’ place (our present abode) in east at kilda
We would stop, select and slurp
I haven’t seen or heard of the brand in twenty years
Here it is in the collarenebri general store, ingredients still listed, still kosher
And no sad fat salivating lady
I’ll keep my eyes peeled for Godiva – the flavour or the topless the horse rider
Love
Howard Jonathan
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