Embarassing moment #2 - The Fribble

High School went by fairly quickly for me except for a few moments which have stuck in my memory like pit stains on a comfortable tee shirt. Like embarrassing moment #1, this one takes place in 1987 but stateside and in a Friendly’s restaurant. Friendly’s, for those unfamiliar with the regional chain, is a restaurant whose main attraction is a large assortment of frozen treats.

I had worked there for what seemed like years teenage-time (which translates into two summers real person time) and I had worked there long enough to look the part. I had my standard issue polyester pants, neatly tucked in matching polyester shirt, a developing Popeye forearm on my ‘scooping arm’ and a little badge proudly displaying my rank in the organization by the number of tiny ice cream cones beneath my name. If I recall correctly, and I highly doubt that I do, I was a two cone crew member. Considering you get one cone for successfully watching a video, I clearly wasn’t very high on the frozen food chain.

I had been working fountain, which means I worked the desserts. This ranged from the Crowd Pleaser (a short lived promotional 8 scoop experiment in gluttony) to single scoop ice cream cones. Somewhere on that continuum lies the shakes category. While ice cream parlors all over the world were satisfied with simply tweaking the original recipe of ice cream + milk + syrup, Friendly’s was busy innovating. After what I’m sure was grueling months in the lab and extensive market research, they invented THE FRIBBLE (Which is the same thing as a milk shake but make with’ ice milk’ instead of ‘ice cream’, flavored only by the syrup).

Truth be told, a milk shake and a Fribble were, at their core, similarly delicious with Fribbles being a little sweeter. The real difference, however, came with consistency. I don’t pretend to understand ice milk at the molecular level, but as far as thick shakes were concerned, ice milk contained some serious thickness mojo.

I’m a big fan of thick shakes and accordingly I had become a master at creating the extra thick Fribble. With ice milk already making a thicker than normal milk shake, that is like saying that I was a master at making extra hard cement. The Friendly’s Fribble recipe called for 3 scoops of ice milk, but as a Fribble artiste, I laughed at their 3-scoop suggestion. You could easily pack 7 scoops into that mixing frappe, saving just enough space to drizzle in the milk and syrup.

On this fateful day I had concocted what I had deemed at the time to be ‘Fribble perfection’ for my 15 minute break. It was the craziest makes-molasses-look-runny Fribble that I had ever created. The mixing machine almost ground to a halt straining against the compressed ice milk. It ended up being so thick that I didn’t even insult it by bringing a straw with me to the break area.

The ‘break area’ at this particular Friendly’s, interestingly enough, was an unused table out with the other customers. In retrospect, I’m not sure why anybody thought this was a good idea. Crew members would spread out various things on the table, carry on and generally be disgusting. This would be like me inviting guests to my home only to have my underwear hanging out to dry in a line across my living room. But I digress….

So I sat down in my break booth and let the clanking, slurping, chattering and bustling of patrons and wait staff alike melt away as, just for a moment, I marveled at my Fribble's beauty...

(Please excuse the strawberryness of this Fribble picture, I can’t seem to find an online picture of a chocolate Fribble.)

After completing my moment of appreciation, I slowly tilted the Fribble to my waiting lips intending to savor every drop from start to finish and….

Nothing happened. The Fribble didn’t move at all. Acting much more like a solid than any shake I’d ever made or even seen, the smooth plane of the fribble was unphased by my modest tilt of the glass. Well, not to be intimidated by my beverage, I got more serious with my angle and brought it to about 90 degerees…

Amazingly, all that happened was more nothing, which, quite honestly, looked rather freakish. I had never seen the surface of a drink remain intact and unmoved with the glass clearly in spill position. I was actually rather amused by the silliness of it. Here is where I have to admit that my actions, if they haven’t already, deviated from a ‘reasonable person’s’ behavior. A reasonable person might say, “Hey, look at this! Cool. I think I’ll get a spoon.” Not being a reasonable person, I continued to tilt the glass...

Now the Fribble was being down right ridiculous. Instead of sliding down neatly onto my eager taste buds, it chose to make a mockery of Sir Iaasic Newton. Well, now I was starting to get impatient. I’d spent a precious 2 minutes of my break and I hadn’t yet begun to enjoy my Fribble. So, in a move that defies both logic and reason, accessing my ketchup bottle skills, I reached up to the bottom of the cup with my free hand and did a little … tap tap.

The next thing I heard was this...

As for what it looked like, I can’t tell you because my vision was quickly blurred, but a rubbernecking waitress (her name was Denise) dropping a tray of food due to an uncontrollable fit of the giggles should give you some indication of the spectacle’s immediate impact.

The bulk of the load hit my face and slid down my front with an opportunistic portion channeling its way into the collar of my shirt. The immediate shock of cold against my skin made me stand up quickly. While standing there, essentially frozen but freaking out on the inside, my neatly tucked in shirt proved to be an ideal funnel for a large amount of chocolate ice milk to flow directly into my no longer tidy whities.

What I can tell you first hand, is that if you are feeling lethargic and need to sharpen up your senses quickly, forget coffee. Just pour an ice cold Fribble on your junk. Not only does the world start to appear in bullet time slow motion but, as a bonus, your legs are well lubricated to give you that extra burst of speed.

In any case, you’ll likely not be surprised to learn that I had not packed a fresh pair of underwear with me to work that day. And it’s not like they had a special provision in the Friendly’s handbook, for idiots who Fribble themselves, to run home and freshen up. If they did, ‘Fribbling’ would become part of everyday work-speak. As in, “It was completely insane in there, I had no choice but to Fribble myself.” Or to a very close co-worker, “What do you say we Fribble ourselves out of here and clean the ice milk out of each others hard to reach areas.”

No, it doesn’t work that way. Instead, I had to slosh my way over to the utility sink leaving a crime scene like trail of chocolate behind me. I used the remaining 13 minutes of my break to sop up what I could and spent the remainder of my shift with shirt and pants branded with the glacial path. If you think scooping ice cream to long waiting customers is tough, trying doing it with Fribble soaked underwear and every other customer trying to find a way to ask me what happened. These comments ranged from the obvious, "What happened to you?" to the more creative, "They really should give you more bathroom breaks."

As for Denise, the waitress, and the rest of my crew members who share this memory, I take comfort in knowing that despite the hard hours and the low pay of the food services industry, everyone who got to work with me that day got a memory and a story that they will take with themselves long after their Friendly’s money is gone. I know that is true for me in any case.

Until next time...

Claude