Now I’ve Seen Everything by Laura Stamps

“Dear Elaine,” she writes. “You’ll never guess. Never. At the liquor store. King’s. One of his stores. The one down the street from my apartment. He’s got a new product. Saw the sign this week. On my evening walk. With Holly. Big sign. Right next to the road. Can’t miss it. This new product. You’ll never guess. Never. Ice cream tacos. Can you believe it? I mean. Whose idea was that? Crazy. Totally. For any store. But a liquor store? Come on. Think about it. No one goes to a liquor store to buy ice cream. No one. And yet, and yet. I can’t help wondering. You know. What does it look like? This ice cream taco. So we did it. Me. Holly. We stopped. Tonight. On our evening walk. And went in. We did. We came. We saw. We couldn’t believe it. Ice cream tacos. Right there. In the frozen section. Just a big blob of ice cream. Vanilla. Stuffed in a taco shell. Topped with a few sprinkles. And that’s it. I mean, seriously. How boring! Crushed. That’s what I was. Holly too. So disappointed. Totally. Had to fix this. Had to. Went to the grocery store after that. Bought a Milk-Bone. For Holly. Her favorite. Bought a pint of Haagen-Dazs Double Belgian Chocolate Chip. For me. You know. Real ice cream. Ate all of it. I did. Yeah. We’re feeling better now. Much, much. Thanks for asking.”

 Laura Stamps loves to play with words in her fiction and prose poetry. Author of 49 novels, novellas, short story collections, and poetry books. Forthcoming: “The Good Dog” (Prolific Pulse Press 2023) and “Addicted to Dog Magazines” (Impspired, 2023). Winner of the Muses Prize. Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations.