Ya Know, I Don't Even Want One Anymore

By Pat McCarthy

Recently everything in my world was shaken. I was cruising through life, enjoying all things, especially things American, and I was basically told my entire life was a lie. Imagine a little child being told that Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy don't exist, and that they were a mistake. It was like that. Times ten. What could induce such feelings of existential angst you ask? Dairy Queen now mass produces their Dilly Bars.

I was indescribably upset. I couldn't form words. This incident occurred about a week ago, and only now am I able to coherently form words to accurately describe my flabbergastment.

When did Dairy Queen's dilly bars become mass produced? What happened to the hand dipped, soft serve on a stick with a curly cue on front wrapped in a paper sack? I don't want a frozen hard plastic wrapped, uniform ice cream concoction. Did they do away with the hand-stamped free dilly message on the stick?

I could understand the Buster Bar, it's a difficult treat to make, and having them mass produced in plastic bags was better than having none at all. Then it extended to the Mint Chocolate Chip Dilly Bar, which was understandable because it had a different ice cream interior. But now, a Butterscotch Dilly Bar mass produced? I'll pay to make my own and screw it up royally. The Butterscotch even tastes differently, and not in a good way. I'm completely baffled.

Walking the block and a half with my family to the local Brazier is an unchanging memory from my childhood. I don't know if the attachment would be as strong if it was a sterile, consistently average ice cream treat. The fact that it was a quirky Dairy Queen, suited to the building, rather than a cookie cutter design that many of the new Dairy Queens are, only added to the attraction, but that's another story.

John Steinbeck in Travels With Charley (Charley is his dog), was confronted with the same thing over 40 years ago when traveling around the United States. He was disgusted by the middling of American cuisine. You can get the same thing anywhere, mass produced, wrapped in plastic to ensure the sterility. They will all taste the same, but they will be average, there will be no great food, nor no terrible food. This may be desirable for the producer, in this case Dairy Queen, to make something more predictable, but for the customer, or at least me, it makes the experience less enjoyable overall. This seems to be the general trend of the time, ensuring not failing rather than striving for success.

I want a handmade Dilly Bar, even if it means a few more germs on it. As George Carlin says in a more extreme example about swimming in the Hudson River: it's good for your immune system. I want to hear an interior "I Got a Golden Ticket" song when I get to the stick and see the free Dilly Bar. I want a soft ice cream interior, where I need to hurry to finish before it melts all over, not a rock hard ice cream brick, that you should thaw before you eat so you don't break your teeth.

Dairy Queen, we may be through, even though I still love your dipped cone. I can't trust that they will always be dipped when I order. They may be the next thing to be mass produced, wrapped in plastic and trucked in a refrigerated car to the local DQ. I will try to get over this, but I can't promise anything and it may take a long time. However, if you revert back to homemade Dilly Bars, Buster Bars and whatever else is now mass produced and shipped out and remarkably average, I will be the first one in line breaking down the door.