When an ice cream is more than extra calories...Recently, I discovered a small treat was a way to uplift my day after expending more physical and mental energy than I had to spare.
At first it was a tiny guilty pleasure...then I tracked it to a pleasant memory of my childhood when we would drive as a family exploring the town close to us. We went into the upscale neighborhood's of two story homes and manicured yards. No one ever playing in the yards but magazine worthy. For us it was curiosity of how the other half lived although we never saw or spoke to the owners. Daddy made a joke that rich people were rich cause they ate canned beans, not from the garden like us. I thought it was his way of saying that we had what we needed and not to yearn for things out of reach. Being grateful for what you had was his mantra. I thought then as now that everyone has the potential of being unhappy or happy no matter what they possess.

• anyway at the end of our drive if we were not arguing too much in the backseat we would stop at the dairy curl and have an ice cream cone. 5 cents I believe.
  Just slowly eating, licking and savoring that one vanilla cone was blissful as we sat on a picnic table in the shade.
  today...I order from the drive up McDonald line, one cone, nothing else. 68 cents to 1.36 depending on the part of town. I keep my window rolled down, driving with one hand....sunglasses like a mask and happily slup my vanilla treat.
  interesting enough, I reenter the busy street traffic only one car length from the traffic light! I never have to wait as every time someone let's me go ahead of them! I think a lot of human beings enjoyed a single cone as a kid!