The Ice Cream Oath

     We promised each other we would never do it.  We would never take our future child's melting ice cream cone out of its little hands, lick the dribbling area around the circumference of the cone, and hand it back, with the process to be repeated as necessary.  Back when we were teenagers, my friend and I used to sit on the porch of an ice cream store on a summer day and watch as young mothers leaving the store with their children would stop to talk to friends. On a warm day, the mothers would, almost as if it were an instinct, neaten up their children's ice cream cones in this manner without even pausing in their conversation.  We, as yet untainted by motherhood, would observe, appalled.  Yuck! How could they!
    "Promise me," said my friend one day, "that you will never do that, even if we do some day have kids."   I was more than in accord, so I took the oath. "No, I will never lick my child's dripping ice cream cone."  And I never did, although I did have three children.  Even as toddlers, they had to take care of their own ice cream dribbles.