The milkbar near my house @ Burnley Street, Richmond –
Monday night, hot AF. I had stopped off at Foxes Den for my dinner ($18 for a quarter chicken and two small salads? wtf / thanks they were tasty but again WTF) but something was lacking. I did not have dessert. And not just any frozen delight. It was hot. #SummerLyf called for one thing and one thing only.. it called for a CALIPPO.
I took my flatmate’s order – A GAYTIME WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME WHAT I WANT FOR DESSERT ITS THE SAME ANSWER EVERYTIME – she said to me lovingly as I tucked my scuzzy purse under my arm and walked 200m to the weird milkbar in my PJs. I’m talking: plastic butcher-shop strands that hang from the door (and haven’t been cleaned since they were installed in 1976), three FULL racks of light-pink engagement/ birthday cards, felt Christmas and Halloween hats, scrunchies, shelves of Impulse Firenze circa ’91, staplers, all the stickytape in all the sizes, light bulbs, spare batteries, matchboxes, candles in all the sizes, boxes of Fags, spoons, plastic water-bottles, dusters and so on.
A light shines out from the freezer and I hear angels singing down from their UFO’s above. My hand reaches in and pulls out the golden, frozen delight that is a (red, always red, never the yellow) CALIPPO. The scent of dust and dim sims waft away making room for the smell of achievement, success, and appreciation of the finer things in life. I grab my flattie’s saggy ole Gaytime and throw my pennies on the counter to a woman who is wearing a yellow skivvy, under a white bedazzled vest, and corduroy pants in this chilly 35 degree heat. I tip my invisible hat to the woman with the appalling blood-circulation and exit this forgotten world of hers clutching the only thing that transcends time and space. A CALIPPO.