I lined up with the hordes and debated: Goody Goody Gum Drops or Cookies and Cream? One of the hardest decisions one can make. I decided upon the old triple G-D - Goody Goody Gumdrops. I panicked at the last second and asked for Cookies and Cream. It's a close call, but you can't beat it.
Like every good New Zealander with no concern for outward appearances, I lashed my tongue around the thing and thought about what a bizarre world we live in that some people bite their icecreams. Equally vexing, too, that a single scoop of icecream in a regular cone appeared to cost more than $4 these days.
But I had no idea that just days away I would be shaken by much more terrible news, news that would shake our foundation as a society.
Tip Top is discontinuing 2-litre tubs of Cookies and Cream and Goody Goody Gum Drops.
While this is a developing story, it appears we may still be able to order those flavours over the counter at our favourite icecream stores. But nonetheless, this is a disturbing turn.
The news sparked debate around watercoolers across the country, including at my own workplace.
One colleague couldn't abide Goody Goody Gum Drops. I can no longer abide her. It's a shame, I liked her, but we must draw moral lines somewhere.
Another said at least it wasn't Hokey Pokey.
Give me strength, I said.
I cannot for one second fathom the standing Hokey Pokey has in our culture. It is the least inspired type of icecream.
I realise this opinion may have me - as people who usually deserve it say - "cancelled".
It may mean my New Zealand passport is immediately invalidated and I am ejected into space. Get the cannon ready then, I'm ready to go Evel Knievel on this.
Hokey Pokey is a decidedly disgusting icecream. If you wanted to conjure up the boring-est, most basic icecream - there it is. It's the kind of ice cream I presume is served in hell.
You take the dullest non-flavour - vanilla - and you sprinkle it with little bits of what is supposed to be "honeycomb" but is really just little chunks of sugar that are immediately crushed into your molars, never to be recovered. What an outrageous affront to humanity.
And yet it is supposedly iconic, one of the most popular flavours. New Zealand: wake up. How can we ever grow as a nation at this rate?
My Hokey Pokey-loving colleague expressed her fondness for the frozen misery by saying she and her brother used to eat the icecream and hold the little bits of honeycomb in their mouths and then drop them back into their respective bowls. Whoever had the most bits at the end was the winner.
If children spitting saliva-laden bits of it into a bowl for sport isn't evidence enough Hokey Pokey should be discontinued, then I'm sorry, there's no hope for this country.
There are some foods that just aren't even worth the calories. Ginger biscuits are one. Have a Toffee Pop for goodness' sake. Hokey Pokey is another. Have chocolate eclair icecream. Heck, have Ben & Jerry's. Live a little. That's what I call counting calories - make them count. No muckin' around.
I'll now resign myself to social ostracism and get back on my bike as many reading this have probably already suggested I do.
Enjoy your Hokey Pokey - but be warned, if they come for both your goodys, they could come for your hokeys and pokeys too. I hope so, it just might make it worth it.
• Felix Desmarais is a journalist and mostly-former stand-up comedian.
Comments