The Life Cycle of a Popsicle
At the start of the summer, popsicles are a foreign concept of days gone by. They haven’t been on the grocery list since last year’s lake trip. You’ve gotten into the habit of walking right past these frozen treats, in pursuit of things like dino nugs, Amy’s organic burritos, maybe a pizza. Or two or three. You’ve gone three full seasons without a single thought having to do with popsicles, let alone a lick of one.
But then, the first 80-degree comes, which usually corresponds with opening day of the neighborhood swimming pool. You find yourself losing more water than you can whilst doing just about any activity out of doors. All of a sudden, there is only one thing that can possibly cool you down. One thing that you need. One thing that can save you. A popsicle.
The grocery store is completely prepared for your seasonal epiphany. The freezer-section go-to’s you’ve been frequenting say to each other, “Yeah, it’s that time of year,” as you pass right by and open the door that guards the shelves of frozen delights. Red, white, and blue bomb pops are of course front and center. The next prominent is going to be the organic fruit pop, strictly placed there because of its price tag. You push these to the side, and there it is. The orange, red, and purple variety pack. The comedy queen of popsicles. The yellow box you came for.
This first box of popsicles barely makes it a week. Your back porch transforms into a bar where your tab is open and you’re asking the bartender to hit you again. The stack of sticks grows and grows and you begin drafting the blueprint for your popsicle mansion that the birds of your neighborhood so desperately need. When the box empties, you immediately head to the store to grab another, before your tongue has the chance to reheat to body temperature.
The second box comes home and fills the perfectly-sized rectangular hole, just in front of the Kid Cuisine you bought out of nostalgia and can’t bring your adult self to actually eat. Life is good again. The second box goes at an admirable speed. Not as quickly as the first, but respectable. Near the end of August, you find yourselves at a crossroads. Should you quit? Is it too late? Do you have room in your life for one more box? In a last-ditch effort to hang onto summer, you buy one more box.
You manage to make your way through a few of the frozen treats, but the magic is largely gone. This feeling is made worse by the tired jokes you've read three-times over. The evenings begin to get chilly, and you begin slinging a sweater over your arm when you go out to dinner. The yellow box, holding one lonely popsicle you can’t quite bring yourself to eat, makes its way further and further in the back of your freezer. The pizzas make their way back to the front, a bag of leftover Thanksgiving turkey you didn’t ask for squeezes its way in as well. A spring thunderstorm causes a power outage, and the single popsicle melts, refreezing into a blob with one flat side.
All of a sudden, it’s May, and the first major weather-blip of the season comes. The walk outside is slightly sweaty. You dust off one pair of shorts and finally decide to throw away that turkey from last Thanksgiving. That’s when you see it. The yellow box. You unwrap the lonely, misshapen treat and it’s summer all over again.