Blue Bell in the Mail

When I was in high school, my Dad had this friend who would drive down to Amarillo, TX to get this special ice cream that was only sold in the South.

I thought it was pretty crazy, personally.

Then, when we moved to Mississippi a few years ago, we discovered Blue Bell ice cream.

It was delicious.

My parents came to visit (frequently), and it turns out that this was the special ice cream that my dad's friend would drive to Texas for!  We were pretty special, living in Mississippi...

I have to admit, I developed a fondness for the stuff.  Especially The Great Divide, Dutch Chocolate and Old Fashioned Vanilla - the good stuff.  So I was kind of disappointed when we moved to Virginia, and couldn't find it.  Apparently Virginia isn't "South" enough to carry Blue Bell...

I think I got over it...mostly...but then a few months ago my Dad called and said he had really exciting news.

Can you believe it?  A grocery store in Colorado was going to start carrying BLUE BELL ICE CREAM!

Then, seriously, everyone in my family who still live in Colorado (so my parents and sister) started TEXTING me pictures of this ice cream when they'd buy it.

Whoo hoo!  Yea...them?

Fast forward to my birthday, in May...

My parents told me that they had just mailed a box to me for my birthday, and it was going to arrive on a specific day.  Each day for the next 2 or 3 days they'd call me to remind me about this box, and that I should open it right away, and not wait till my birthday.

I think my response was usually, "yeah, sure, whatever, Mom and Dad..."

Well, when UPS came by with that box I dutifully opened it up, right away, and found this:

What the heck?!?  Did my parents send me fish, or meat or something?

(Which would be totally out of character for our family.)

So I tore through all the plastic wrapping, and opened the cooler...

and still couldn't figure out what the heck they had sent me, or why was it dripping.

When I suspected it was chocolately (when I first saw it I thought it might be blood, going back to the fish/meat thing.  And, YUCK!), I wondered why they'd send me chocolate milk...

So once I pulled the gross (but non-bloody) brown paper sacks out, I saw a sad sight:  

Melted ice cream.  A full gallon of it.

Darn it.

I called my mom for the scoop (ha, ha, pun intended), but I felt so bad telling her that it was all melted.

They had really wanted to send me Blue Bell ice cream for my birthday.  My mom spent a whole afternoon gathering up supplies, researching how best to send something frozen in the mail, figuring out the restrictions on dry ice (the butcher at the grocery store had assured my mom that they sent meat on 8 lbs of dry ice all the time, without the meat, or the ice melting).  My parents were pretty excited about the whole thing.

It would have been awesome, had it worked out.

But I felt pretty loved anyway.

My parents are the bestest.