I rode a red-hot mountain bike to my shifts at Dairy Queen. Parents, if you want to safeguard your children against delinquency, ensure that they have to ride a wild hog like that around town. Transportation by two-wheeler does not a mischievous adolescent make. I left my house a half an hour early for my shift at the DQ, having completed the story problem in my head: If Kendra wants to reach her destination three miles away and have both hands off the handlebar and she pedals at a pace of…. Coolness: there was no app for that.

After I got my driver’s license, I was occasionally allowed to borrow the mini-van to drive to work. There are no selfies of my time at the DQ, nor old uniform T-shirts. Just years and years of memories with a Q on top.

One night, while mopping the floor at DQ, I accidentally hit my head on the corner of a stainless steel prep table. I continued mopping until I saw red droplets falling on the floor, coming from my head. I went to go tell my manager that I thought I was bleeding but as I approached her, the information and the blood got confused as to which needed to come out of my head first and I stood there smiling creepily at her, pointing at my bloody noggin.

“Why did you squirt Mr. Misty syrup on your head?” she asked, slightly annoyed. We were trying to close up shop and here I was pulling shenanigans with random ingredients. Heehee. Teedlee hee.

My mouth was moving. The words were not.

“Oh my goodness! Oh Oh, sit down. Oh, that’s blood. Okay, hang on, let me call your parents.”

Both of my parents arrived in my dad’s car, wearing their pajamas. One to drive me home, one to drive the minivan home since I was too disoriented to get behind the wheel.

I don't know which was more embarrassing. Cracking my head open or my pajama-clad parents coming to my rescue.

Either way, I totally hope my bloody slush story is part of the folklore of the Bay Village Dairy Queen.

***

Contrary to popular belief, this is not Dave Barry, but actually Kendra - 1995 - the year my career as the dairy queen began.