Bill and Rachel's 1-2 will visit a diner on Market Street tomorrow as part of their social studies curriculum. Today, the children pre-ordered items from the diner's menu. The total cost had to be $3.25 or less (that's where the math comes in). Most kids opted for milk shakes, hot chocolate, or scoops of ice cream, though one independent thinker chose a bagel with cream cheese as part of his meal.
I'm generally very good at deciphering invntd spelilng, but a child had written a list of possible ice cream flavors, and I was stumped by one of them. "Chocklit" I understood just fine, and "vanila" was obvious enough, and I also spied the eminently readable "coffy," along with a few others. But what, I wondered, was "shrubary"?
"Shrubbery," I soon decided, for what else could it be? It put me in mind of Monty Python's star-crossed search for the Holy Grail. "You must bring us some shrubbery ice cream!" cry out the knights who say Ni! "A premium brand. With hot fudge topping." But what shrubbery ice cream might look like, let alone taste like, was beyond my imagination. So I asked Bill.
"That one? Oh, that one says strawberry," he told me.
"Strawberry is the most flavorish kind of ice cream," said one of the children, overhearing.
Shrubary...Strawberry! Of course. Feeling like a batter who'd just shruck out, I wished them all a fine time on Market Shreet and slowly shrolled away.
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