Rant #2,959: You Better You Bet

Boy, did I oversleep!
 
My wife and I both woke up late today, and I am writing this Rant out at about the same time that I finished yesterday’s Rant.
 
I think I know why.
 
As you know, we celebrated our son’s 27th birthday yesterday, and after dinner, we further celebrated with cake, candles and gifts.
 
I do think that eating the cake had something to do with our sleepiness because we don’t normally eat cake that late in the day, and certainly not during the week.
 
And on top of it all, the cake was an ice cream cake, and I think that may have weighed us down.
 
I know that that is exactly what happened tot me at least, because I fell asleep pretty early last night, earlier than I normally do.
 
So I am going to blame the ice cream for the extra sleep that I experienced and the lateness of this Rant.
 
Taking that into account, the next question you readers should have is this:
 
“What type of ice cream cake did you have?”
 
It was a Carvel cake with chocolate frosting and vanilla ice cream on its inside, plus those signature chocolate crumbs right next to the vanilla ice cream on the inside.
 
You simply cannot go wrong with a Carvel cake, or Carvel in general.
 
I have eaten all different types of ice cream, and Carvel always rises to the top of the list.
 
In my mind, there is no better ice cream than Carvel.
 
I know that you cannot get Carvel in certain parts of the country—most of the southern part of our country for one—and that Dairy Queen is the ice cream of choice in many of those areas.
 
But for taste, you cannot beat Carvel, and while Dairy Queen is good—we actually have a Dairy Queen about a mile away from us—it simply is not Carvel.
 
I think part of the lure of Carvel is that it is something that Baby Boomers, in particular, grew up with if you lived in the New York Metropolitan Area, and it just brings back so many memories of our lives with every spoonful or lick or bite.
 
Sure, I have plenty of fond memories of Good Humor, too, but that was almost “fast food” ice cream—deoivered by truck every summer—when compared to Carvel, which you had to go out and get.
 
Mister Softie was also good, Bungalow Bar was not, and Hood was somewhere right in the middle.
 
But if you wanted “the real thing,” as far as I am concerned, you went out to get Carvel.
 
And remember those funny commercials starring the creator of Carvel, Tom Carvel, where he touted “Cookie Puss” and “Thinny Thins” and everything else his stores had to offer?
 
They got the point across in their own funny way.
 
I particularly love their Flying Saucers, which pretty much melt in your mouth while they get all over your hands …
 
And who can forget the Brown Bonnets, with the chocolate almost impaled onto the top of the cone?
 
There is just something special about Carvel ice cream, but with all the gimmicks, it has to start and end with the taste, and there is no better soft-serve ice cream than Carvel, in my opinion, in that regard.
 
It just goes down so smoothly, and as it did last night, it weighs you down and can put you to sleep, much like Thanksgiving turkey does.
 
All the other ice creams are good, but they simply cannot compete with Carvel, at least in my book.
 
And the great thing is that we have leftovers from our son’s birthday cake, and we might be enjoying this cake for weeks to come.
 
I envision many sleep-full nights whenever I have a piece of that cake.
 
And I also envision swooning at every mouthful, because it is that good.
 
I guess it is a good way to run out the remainder of the summer.
 
Do you remember the slogan that Miller High Life used in its beer advertising …
 
“The Champagne of Bottled Beers?”
 
Well, to twist it a little bit, Carvel is “The Champagne of Soft-Serve Ice Cream.”
 
Long Live Carvel!