Chocolate Or Wait

Just to leave the wintery themes behind for a day...

Summer road trips when I was young always seemed just a little too long, a little too hot (no AC), and never quite as much fun as I had hoped for. It was on a foray into the wilds of western Wisconsin, in search of the fabled Crystal Cave, when we found ourselves a little overheated, a little hungry and a little lost. Finally, dad broke down and pulled into a little roadside store. we went in, and much to our relief, found out that they sold ice cream. I was in the mood for a nice cone, something light to freshen my palate.
"What would ya like, sonny?"
"What kinds do you have?"
"Wull, we've got choclit or wait."
"What?"
"He said Choclit or wait." My dad was getting impatient.
I really didn't want chocolate, but I didn't want to wait either... (For what? The ice cream truck? Did the guy have to make any other flavors from scratch?)... so I meekly said: "I'll take chocolate."
I got my cone, and went outside, to eat it at a picnic table.
A minute or too later my sister came out with a nice vanilla cone.
"How come you got vanilla? I wanted vanilla!"
"He said chocolate or wait. I choose wait."
I thought every one had gone nuts.
"But you got vanilla, and you didn't have to wait."
"WHITE, dummy. This is a white ice cream cone."

Somehow, in Wisconsin, vanilla was called white. I later learned that all sorts of things in Wisconsin were called by other names, although I never heard "white" for vanilla again.

The thing that bothered me all the way home was that my family called it white too. I sometimes thought I was adopted.