The proper etiquette for eating an ice cream sundae (standard:Inspirational stories, 899 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Mar 17 2013	Views/Reads: 3103/1910	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Not everybody realizes how important it is to follow protocol. Many Philistines in our society do things so haphazardly that it is a real affront to those of us who know better. There should be a law forbidding such perfunctory behavior. We have a law for

Not everybody realizes how important it is to follow protocol. Many
Philistines in our society do things so haphazardly that it is a real 
affront to those of us who know better. There should be a law 
forbidding such perfunctory behavior. We have a law for everything 
else, why not this? Plus, it would better serve our country and help 
maintain civilized behavior among our citizens. 

I will be the first to admit that, throughout my lifetime, I have not
always been committed to civilized behavior. It took me a long time to 
realize what civilized behavior really was. Before I got married, I had 
an idea of what I thought civilized behavior was. Unbeknownst to me I 
had wandered about in sheer ignorance. 

Looking back, I think of those times and know why somebody said,
"Ignorance is bliss." And to be sure, I was very blissful. In fact, I 
did not know how very blissful I was. 

Then came the time when I was willing to throw away all that bliss for
the, "I do," of a certain young lady I chanced to meet. It was then 
that my idea of bliss radically changed forever. 

After getting married I realized just how uncivilized by behavior had
been up to this point. Fortunately, for me, my bride was more than 
willing to take up the challenge of nurturing me to a more civilized 
behavior. 

I would not say that she has been overwhelmingly successful in this
attempt, however. I am a lot more civilized today than I was prior, 
which has to count for something. 

One of the things that she attributes to civilized behavior has to do
with cleanliness, in particular, clean clothes. For some reason she has 
a fetish that everything has to be cleaned. In my uncivilized days, I 
had more of a fetish about saving water. Through the years, her 
persistence has paid off and I have come to the place that I really 
appreciate clean clothes. 

Of course, there is a discrepancy in what each of us deem as clean. 

For me, clean is when it passes the sniff test. As long as I cannot
smell anything on my shirt, I consider it clean. My wife, on the other 
hand, believes that if you wear a piece of clothing one time it ceases 
to be clean. 

Then there are spots. If a spot is on my shirt where nobody else can see
it, I consider the shirt clean. After all, appearance is what really 
counts. However, my wife believes any and every spot renders a shirt 
unclean. 

This brings me to the subject at hand. That is, the proper etiquette for
eating an ice cream sundae. It appears, so I am told, that the correct 
way to eat an ice cream sundae is not to get any on your shirt. 

My favorite ice cream sundae is hot fudge, which is humanly impossible
to eat without getting something on your shirt. No matter how careful, 
I always drip hot fudge on my shirt. The cleaner the shirt, the bigger 
the smudge. 

It is for this reason that the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage has
laid down some very strict rules when it comes to ice cream sundaes. No 
ice cream sundaes! 

Period! For the most part, I do not let her catch me eating an ice cream
sundae. It is more for her good than for mine that I keep this a 
secret. Whenever she discovers I have had an ice cream sundae it 
affects her blood pressure, not to mention the wear and tear on her 
vocal cords. (I will not even mention my eardrums.) 

I have tried everything under the sun to master the etiquette of
properly eating an ice cream sundae. No matter what I do or try, the 
result is always the same. Some little smidgen of fudge on my clothing 
somewhere. 

I recently came to a milestone in my pursuit of ice cream sundaes. At
first, I thought it was an ingenious plan. In the beginning, it looked 


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