I didn't find any tissues in my wife's purse. However, at the bottom of the purse, beyond the tube of lipstick, the sticks of gum, the loose change, I pulled out something very small, very bright, very plastic.
It was a sprinkle. Another sprinkle.
It came from the Museum of Ice Cream, which recently opened in Los Angeles after a successful run here in New York. Tickets sold out quickly after its launch last summer in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. My wife and I lucked out and secured two tickets for a Tuesday morning in July.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Museum of Ice Cream, it's a museum dedicated to ... ice cream. When we entered the museum, we received a sample of ice cream. We were then escorted into a room, where there was a huge sculpture made of ice cream.
There was a lot of ice cream in the museum. Candy, too. It was absolutely delightful. This was Willy Wonka's chocolate factory come to life. I was Charlie Bucket. (I wasn't invited to move in and run the museum, though I did offer.)
The centerpiece of the museum was the sprinkle pool, filled with close to 100 million sprinkles. They weren't the type of sprinkles you'd put on your ice cream cone. They were actually antimicrobial plastics, which you'd never want to put on your ice cream cone.
I removed my sneakers and jumped right in, because how often am I presented an opportunity to take a dip in a pool of antimicrobial plastics? I waded through the plastics and took selfies for about 10 minutes before heading to the next exhibit.
Later that morning, after I'd left the museum, I was walking the streets when I felt a small object inside my right sneaker. I figured it would be a pebble, but it turned out to be a small, yellow antimicrobial plastic, i.e. a sprinkle. It must have stuck to my sock while I was in the sprinkle pool. I tossed it aside, put my sneaker back on and continued on my way.
The next day I was fishing through my jeans pocket for my keys when I grabbed hold of another sprinkle, a red one. Ha ha. These sprinkles are attached to me, I chuckled to myself.
But they really were attached to me. I found more and more sprinkles in the ensuing months. In my wallet. In my backpack. In my other sneaker. In my kitchen. I don't know how they ended up in any of these places. They just somehow proliferated, like colorful Gremlins. I was experiencing an outbreak of sprinkles.
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| Just make yourself right at home, sprinkle. |
Toward the end of 2016 and into early 2017, I saw fewer and fewer sprinkles. And then, I saw none. I was relieved that they were finally out of my life.
And then I went through my wife's purse last night.
If you live in the Los Angeles area, see you if can score a ticket to the Museum of Ice Cream. It's an incredible amount of fun.
Just know this: The visit will stay with you for a long, long time.
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