Happiness is...

...a chocolate sprinkle cone from Twistee Treat.

Chocolate sprinkle cones from Twistee Treat always put me in a simple, grade-school joy frame of mind. All cares melt away as long as there are sprinkles left to lick and cake cone left to crunch. If there's such a thing as positive restimulation (where the old brain doesn't know the difference between the present and the past), this is definitely it!

In grade school it was trips to the Dairy King (somewhere on Edgewater Drive, I think, across from a high school and near a church). Dad knew the owner--name the place, Dad always knows the owners--so at the end of the night, they gave us cartons of leftover ice cream mix.

In high school it was the Twistee Treat on Goldenrod Road, down the street from church. Cake cones towering with chocolate/vanilla twist soft-serve and completely encrusted with chocolate sprinkles RULED. The building is still there, although I heard it might be closed; we haven't been since we moved across town years ago.

Tonight on the way to Clermont, Scott spotted a Twistee Treat. So on our way back (at 9:30PM, still open!) we stopped for a cone. The cake-cone shaped building with a soft-serve peak roof stood alone on the side of the road, brightly lit in an area without street lamps. Faded red letters across the top of the building still say "6 flavors", and though there are over 26 now (we tried the white chocolate macademia), they don't have anything on chocolate vanilla twist! I sat in the car with napkins on my lap catching the occasional shower of chocolate sprinkles (they still don't skimp!), momentarily transported to a place where it didn't matter much if I spilled food.

Chocolate sprinkle cones from Twistee Treat still RULE!