20. Ice cream, insanity, illness and runners (not me)

Hello and welcome. The big news around Missoula these days is that the Dairy Queen on Higgins is open again. It closes for the winter, it is very quaint and ridiculous. They put a sign in the window that's all "Sorry suckas! No ice cream 'til mid-February!" Mid-February is normally pretty wintery/crappy - I thought the sign was a bluff, or a relic they never bothered to change, left over from the '60s when winter didn't last as long as it does now. But mid-February was true! Last week they put a sandwich board in front of the store with a cryptic countdown, it was very exciting. Everyone would drive by, see the sign, perhaps crash their cars or run over pedestrians because they were so excited.



It's barely in time. Missoulians have been experiencing a dangerous calcium deficiency since the Dairy Queen has been closed, and it's driven us to robbery, vandalism, vigilantism, and, occasionally, murder (we prefer stabbing). Some might be concerned that frequenting the Dairy Queen now will make us fat and Missoula will lose its status as Fittest City Ever (which we won last year from some magazine) but did you know that Dairy Queen doesn't even serve ice cream? They serve ice milk! Because the fat content is so low! They don't advertise that fact, because who wants to eat ice milk? Gross, no one does, so they call it something lame, like 'frozen treat' or whatever. But it's ice milk - milk, not cream. If they tried calling it cream, angry Dairy Farmers of America or whoever would come raid them (so the sign in the window actually read 'No ice milk 'til mid-February!', or it would have if that's what it actually said, but I was paraphrasing).

Since the Dairy Queen reopened, there have been unending lines of people standing outside it, all day long, even late into the night. I live right by the Dairy Queen, a few blocks away. I've spent the past many days walking by the Dairy Queen and I've stopped three times since it opened, I've been unable to resist. Yesterday I got a vanilla cone. It was fine. I got a malt once, that was fine. I got a Blizzard once, a Choco-Cherry Mega-Blasto XXXtreem Dream, which is not as good as Cherry Garcia and I can't recommend it - however, I haven't killed anyone or robbed anything since then, and I also haven't been run over, so, you know. Caveat emptor.

The reopening of the Dairy Queen gives credence to my premature call for the end of winter. And only two days after the Dairy Queen reopened, I saw my first shirtless jogger/moron of the year. I've been pushing the idea of spring since December, but this guy just... he was all pinkish, not because he was hot but because he was cold. Just because it got over 40 degrees doesn't mean you should take your clothes off and run around. Also I saw a lady running in a tank top. Temperatures in the low 40s warrant short sleeves, maybe even shorts if the sun is out and you're doing speed work, but that's it. Come on, people - no wonder half of Missoula is sick. (Half of Missoula is sick.)