A weird thing happened this weekend.

This weekend I was on my way to a friend’s house when I saw an ice cream shop and decided to stop in for a cone.  I approached the counter.

“What’ll you have?” asked the kid behind the counter.  I’d place him at about high-school age.

I surveyed the choices in the freezer before me.  To the left was a huge tub of chocolate, and all the way on the right was an equally huge tub of vanilla.  I assumed these were so much bigger because a greater number of people asked for those.  In between the two, there were dozens of smaller tubs, each filled with a different flavor.  And what flavors they were!  I asked the kid behind the counter for a few taste samples.  The first one I tried was a little too out there for me, the second one kind of bland.  A few more misses and finally, on my sixth taste, I found the ice cream I wanted.

“That one, there, what flavor is that?” I asked.

“Peanut Chocolate Caramel,” he replied.

“I’ll have two scoops of that please.”

“You can’t have it.”

“…Excuse me?”

“You can’t have Peanut Chocolate Caramel.  You have to pick either Chocolate of Vanilla.  Otherwise, what’s the point?” he explained.

“I… what are you talking about?  I give you my money, you give me what I want.  That seems to work everywhere else, why can’t you do it?”

“Fine, if that’s the one you really want,” he mumbled, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s the one I want.”  I was dumbstruck.

He reached into the freezer and got to scooping.  I looked around the store, surprised it had stayed in business this long with service like this.  Finally, he rose up, cone in hand.  “$3.75, please.”  In his hand was a cone with two scoops of chocolate.

“But that’s not what I wanted!”

“I know.  I took your decision into consideration and passed it along to our Delectable College.  They decided that chocolate would actually be better for you than what you wanted.  So this is what you’re getting.”

“But… I…”

“$3.75, please.”

Not wanting to continue this any longer than I had to, and really just wanting any kind of ice cream at this point, I paid the boy and I left.  As I exited the store, I looked up at their sign, so I would know never to come here again.  It read:

Democracy Ice Cream

Right.