Stick out your chin, and grin and say ... one scoop in a cup please

It was one of those days.
It was raining.

I got up on the wrong side of the futon.
It was a day full of tiny little disappointments.

I tore a hole in my purse. I left the office building for lunch without my wallet and had to go back and get it. I made suggestions that people at work disliked. I missed a deadline that I had set for myself. I did not do any of the things that I was sort of thinking about and kind of looking forward to this evening. The concert I wanted to see was sold out. And so on and so on. Minor minor little things that meant nothing except that one followed another all day today. The only free seat on the train was wet. And then I decided to make a gloomy day a little greyer. I had time to ponder past mistakes and missteps and missed opportunities. The rather large number of entirely futile things that I do on a daily basis. Lost love. The lack of love. The death of love and the novel and the decline of civilization, the inherent horribleness of man and the imperfection of everything in existence and my mortality and the mortality of those that I love and those that I admire. The death of my sad and much neglected office plants. (Be kind to plants, do not give them to me. You are better off liberating them in the forest.)

My interior dialogue as I walked home was something like this:

"I am gloomy."
-"You got no cause to be gloomy."

"I am gloomy."
-"What would make you feel better?"

"Ice cream!"
-"Ice cream? That will make you fat and do all kinds of terrible things to your health. Have you taken a look at your belly lately? How about a nice bowl of beans?"

"Beans?"
-"You'll have beans and then clean the apartment. That'll be good. It will make you feel good about yourself."

"Beans and cleaning. Could my life get any gloomier."
-" ... okay let's get ice cream."

I get a scoop of chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins and head home.

-"Feel better?"

"No. I'm still gloomy."
-"Oh for God's sake! I bought you chocolate ice cream. What more could you want?!"

At which point I laughed out loud. After all, I had a point. And I sat down on my floor and had me some ice cream. It was delicious.