The Horror: I Bought the Wrong Flavor of Ice Cream

originalsaltedcaramelMere hours ago, I experienced one of the greatest horrors of my adult life.

After a long day of jury duty (rather, of sitting in a room waiting to be called for jury duty…and never being called), I dropped by the grocery store. As I passed by the ice cream aisle, I thought, “Why not treat yourself to a pint?”

I had heard good things about Graeter’s ice cream, and it was on sale, so it seemed like a good time to try it. One pint in particular caught my eye: mocha chocolate chip. I don’t drink coffee, but I love ice cream that tastes like the smell of coffee.

Before I picked up the pint, my eyes darted to a lower row of Graeter’s ice cream (I wanted to make sure I made the right choice). I saw nothing better than mocha chocolate chip, so I grabbed a carton of it from the lower row.

This turned out to be a dreadful, dreadful mistake.

I spent the rest of the evening thinking about enjoying a scoop of that pint after dinner. I drove to soccer thinking about it. I drove back from soccer thinking about it. I thought about it in the shower. I thought about it as I made and ate dinner.

Did I mention I like dessert? I love dessert. Why did I ever think I should give up dessert?!

The moment finally came when I could dig into the ice cream. I popped the top, dug in the scoop…and I realized that something was wrong. The ice cream had no chocolate chips in it.

In slow motion, I turned the side of the carton towards me. There I saw it: A label clearly stating that I was holding a pint of salted caramel, not mocha chocolate chip.

The horror.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with salted caramel. It was fine. But when you spend your entire evening fixated on the certainty that you were going to put mocha chocolate chip ice cream in your mouth, anything else seems like the equivalent of frozen poo-poo.

The one silver lining to this story is that I actually ate a fair amount of the best ice cream in the world when I was back home in Virginia this past weekend.

Have you ever done this? Set yourself up for something you knew was going to be awesome, only to realize at the last minute that it wasn’t what you thought it was?

8 thoughts on “The Horror: I Bought the Wrong Flavor of Ice Cream”

  1. I would be crushed. You must go back and get the mocha chocolate chip. Or the mint chocolate chip. Or the black raspberry chocolate chip. And now, I have to go to the local Kroger family store and get some Graeters.

    Reply
  2. Give the salted caramel a chance, with hot fudge and pecans it is a dreamy turtle sundae, I promise. But I understand the disappointment. I am not a fan of strawberry ice cream (although, ironically, I love strawberries)I do however love cherry nut ice cream. I’ve mistaken the strawberry for cherry nut, and been disappointed. Luckily I have one of those husbands who loves all ice cream, regardless of flavor and will eat it so it doesn’t end of wasting space in the freezer.

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    • Okay, now I’m tempted to acquire both hot fudge and pecans to make that possible. It does sound pretty good. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Oh Graeters! My favorite ice cream. The Schucks on the Hill stopped carrying it, so I thought all hope was lost, but this is fantastic news to hear I can still purchase Graeters without driving to Indy or Louisville (believe me, it’s worth the drive to tour the factory and have ANY of their flavors available at your fingertips!). Did you know, they make their chocolate chips by melting a 10# chocolate bar, then drizzling said chocolate into their ice cream as it’s churning, creating large, delicious, soft, melt in your mouth chocolate chips? Incredible. They have so many more flavors in their store than they sell in grocery stores, including seasonal flavors, including my personal favorite: mint cookies and cream. I don’t even like mint ice cream, and I’m not a huge fan of cookies and cream. But dang. That combo is just perfect. I have some sitting in my freezer right now, but I’m in Springfield for work. Oh god. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this week.

    Reply
    • Lindsay: I got mine from the Straub’s in the CWE. That sounds awesome about the chocolate chips, and now I’m even more remiss I didn’t pick up the right flavor!

      Reply
  4. Coincidentally I had a similar ice cream buying failure yesterday when I stopped at the store after work. I think due to the announcement Starbucks made yesterday about new flavors of coffee drinks they are adding to their menu, I was craving coffee flavored ice cream too, and planned to pick up some on my way home, only to discover that while Target offers many flavors of Breyers ice cream that coffee is not one of them (none of the other brands they carry had it either). I settled on plain old vanilla, which is still delicious, but not the same… After reading the other comments praising the mocha chocolate chip, I may have to make a special trip to Straubs in the near future to pick up a pint. 🙂

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