Did I tell y’all how I used to work at Dairy Queen? Of course I worked at Dairy Queen! Come on. My family once took a vacation that consisted of nothing but driving around the middle of the country stopping at every Dairy Queen that hit our fancy.
When we were little, we used to all pile in the… shit. You know, I used to think that I couldn’t remember anything vividly from before about third or fourth grade.
But I was all set to tell you about how, when we were little, we used to pile into the car and drive clear from Nokomis into Taylorville, listening to the Cards on the radio. And we would stay strapped in the back seat and Dad wouldn’t want to miss any of the game, so Mom went up and placed our order, paid, came back with napkins, came back with waters, came back with a peanut buster parfait for Dad and either small cones dipped in chocolate or Dilly Bars for us, and we would eat them and listen to the game and watch the other families come and go.
And then, after a long time, we’d slowly pull out of the parking spot and head home. I was always asleep before we got there.
I remember that as clear as anything.
That was before the Butcher was born.
Hmm.
Anyway, so yes, no surprise that I ended up working at Dairy Queen. I did a little of everything. I learned to pull the soft serve. I worked the grill. I even regularly worked the drive-up.
Still, it was a boring job and I had to do things to amuse myself–such as instituting the policy that, whenever someone ordered a Hawaiian Blizzard, we would hula dance for them.
Good times.
Anyway, my mom’s apartment is right next door to a Dairy Queen (one of the reasons, I suspect, she’s having a hard time giving the apartment up) and she likes to regale me with tales of how handy it is to know someone who used to work at Dairy Queen when ordering at a Dairy Queen.
And I though, shoot, it’s summer time. Dear readers, get in the car, turn on some baseball, and go treat yourself to some Dairy Queen.
Here’s the inside scoop (so to speak) on the important things you need to know when ordering:
–You don’t have to have the toppings that come with any Treat. For instance, you could order a banana split and get all chocolate or hot fudge, hard shell, and chocolate.
–That’s a useful thing to know, too. There are three chocolaty toppings–chocolate syrup, hot fudge, and hard shell. The hard shell gets hard when exposed to the cool of the soft serve because there’s a lot of wax in the hard shell. Be sure your server gives the hard shell a good mix before he uses it on your item.
–The absolute best thing you can get at a Dairy Queen is the following–an M&M Blizzard made with strawberry instead of chocolate sauce. It is so good. If I weren’t allergic to strawberries, I would get it all the time.
–The rumor was, when I was working there, that the yogurt was actually more fattening than the soft serve. Soft serve is full of air (and calcium) so it’s practically good for you.
Aw, shucks. I wish I’d never brought up the strawberry M&M Blizzard. Folks, you can develop allergies as you get older and sometimes, those allergies are a cruel, cruel joke played on you by the universe.
Tiny Cat Pants 
What the hell is in a Hawaiian Blizzard? I’m thinking that pineapple and canadian bacon wouldn’t go well with vanilla ice cream.We LOVED Dairy Queen. I would get the cherry Dilly Bar, or whatever the round thing was, I’m thing the Dilly Bar was the chocolate one with the peanuts on the bottom), and my brother got Mr. Mistys until we realized that every time he had a Mr. Misty, he’d wet the bed that night. So then he had to switch to Peanut Butter Parfaits. Does teasing your little brother about wetting the bed ever get old?
A Hawaiian Blizzard was pinapple, banana, coconut, and … maybe cherries, I can’t remember.Oh, my god! Do you know what would be an awesome Blizzard?! Hot fudge, butterscotch, walnuts, and coconut!The Dilly Bar was the round thing. The thing with the peanuts at the bottom was a Buster Bar. When I worked there, we still had to make all those by hand and it was good fun to make the Buster Bars, because you made them in small Dixie Cups and after they were hard, you dipped the Dixie Cup in warm water to get it to let loose, pulled it out, and dipped it in chocolate.And, god, I hope teasing your brother about wetting the bed never gets old.
Mmmmm…pineapple, canadian bacon and ice cream.Three things I learned from 4 years in California that make me a freak to my southern friends:1. A love of ham and pineapple pizza2. The ability to throw a frisbee3. An appreciation of volleyball that extends past the shorts of the women on the beach
And here I thought the ability to throw a frisbee was just one of the pleasant side effects of marijuana use…
One of the men working here had just told us how he got food poisoning at a DQ and now wretches at the thought of the place. Long long ago in a neighborhood far far away my mother got me a soft serve from DQ after school every Friday. I would like to reinstitute that policy if possible. Ironically, in the Alanis way, the place I live now had, until three months ago, a DQ within walking distance. It closed.