“Kate, this is Matt. He’ll teach you everything, okay?” Patty, my new boss, said as she left me with Matt Smith, a kid a grade ahead of me, who in the previous school year had been involved in making my life a living hell. This was turning out to be a very awkward moment.


“Uh, hi… Matt. We go to school together.” It was so stupid, he obviously already knew that, but it was all I could say.


Matt mumbled his quick hello and grabbed a couple glasses of soda along with a foam cup filled with cherries to put on ice cream sundaes. I then followed him into the parlor and watched as he pulled out metal cups, ice cream scoops, chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce, vanilla sauce and Mexican peanuts, among other things.


I could already tell that this was going to be a fun summer. A high school football jock and a quote unquote emo that would be working together, hah what a great combination, I thought to myself.


While Matt was setting up, I looked around. We came from the kitchen door, which was on the back wall behind me, past the counter, cooler and soft ice cream machines. Along the wall, kiddie corner to the kitchen, were the bathroom door and a lonely, not working, drinking fountain. Next to the drinking fountain was a door leading to the deck along with randomly placed windows, a few fake plants and gumball machine. The last wall had only one door leading to the outdoor bar. There was one open window, which led to Patty’s station at the bar. From the last wall came a counter behind glass with a hard ice cream cooler. The torture was about to begin. It was the middle of July, in an enclosed stuffy room with someone who I was pretty sure would rather jump off a cliff than work with me.


The first day was, well, tuff. I met the owner’s wife, Nisa, whom I found out later, to put it lightly, is the anti-Christ. I gave over one hundred PMSing women large chocolate ice cream, as they complained about the heat, the slowness of my scooping skills, and the ice cream itself. The heat didn’t soften the ice cream one bit. Most of it was rock hard. I soon learned to let Matt scoop hard ice cream, talk to the customers and make milkshakes. While I, the newbie, was banished to putting toppings on Sundays, giving the dirty milkshake cups to Carlos, the clingy dishwasher, scooping milky ice cream, and sprinkle duty.


In some ways working did get better, like my mother had told me, and it got worse. Matt soon quit his job for football, leaving the position open for the new Matt to work there with me. New Matt and I got along so much better than old Matt and I did. Matt is just as clumsy as I am when it comes to our jobs.


On one very busy day we had a woman named Melissa working in the shop with us. I don’t like Melissa but I don’t hate her. The customers are always complaining to me about her scoop quality. I regularly sent her on meaningless tasks, to get her away from the counter. Matt is at the counter mixing a chocolate milkshake on our mixer, which is older than Mrs. Flintstone, our very ancient English teacher, and I am scooping the milkiest ice cream onto a cone. All of a sudden I hear this sickening screech and then a splash.


“Ah, ow I got it in my eye. Good lord, chocolates on my favorite hat. Oh my gosh look at what happened to the ceiling, stupid milkshake!” Matt is the only person I know who can explode a chocolate milkshake all over himself, the wall, the ceiling, and the mixer from the prehistoric era. I turn around at the sound of Matt’s yelling so quickly I slip on a puddle of melted cookies ‘n cream, and in my sad attempt to catch myself from falling, I threw the ice cream into the air and dive towards the counter.


This whole disaster happens right as Nisa walked into the shop with Melissa. Time slows as I’m holding myself up with the counter; I look at the chocolate covered Matt and back to Nisa’s impending doom flying towards her face at warped speed. Nisa has no idea what was coming, the pistachio ice cream hits her face full force forcing her backwards, and tripping into a line of customers.


My mom shows up at work about an hour later to get me and she asks how my day was. How was my day, mom? Well I did a face plant into a counter, matt blew up a milkshake on the closest four customers and himself, and I then continued to blind my bosses wife with pistachio ice cream.


“Nothing interesting…” I say with no emotion in my voice.