Trick Questions

"I'd like a single-scoop chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cone on a cake cone, please,"

I was confident that this was all the information needed to fill my order, but the sweet young girl at the Bruster's ordering window required clarification.

"When you say 'single scoop' do you actually want a ’single scoop' or do you really want a  'double scoop?'"

Was this a trick question, I wondered.  Sensing my confusion, she offered some additional explanation.

"See, some people say 'single scoop' when they actually mean they want a small cone, and our small cone actually has two scoops on it."

As I walked away with my ice cream cone, I had some questions of my own.  

Why doesn't Bruster's just call a single scoop a single scoop?  That's what they did at Isaly's in the dark ages when I was growing up (and the single scoops only cost a nickel).  Does anything still cost a nickel?  

And I wondered what Bruster's called the girl behind the counter (who really couldn't have been sweeter about it).  Was she a counter worker or a waitress or a scooper or an ice cream Barrista? You have to be careful nowadays, which I found out when I casually referred to the person taking our order at a Max and Erma's as our "server." "I prefer 'facilitator'," he informed me haughtily.

But the question that was harder to answer came from my father, who  despite being  90 years old and sharp as a tack mentally sometimes can't find the exact word he wants to use.  Hence the following conversation during lunch at the Cheesecake Factory:

Dad:                                  Sharon, what's that other name for grass? 

Me (Drawing a blank).       Um, a lawn?

Dad:                                  No, not that kind of grass!

Me (Totally confused now) Well, I don't know what other kind of grass there is.

Dad:                                  You know,  the stuff you put in a pipe and smoke.

Me (the light dawning)        Are you talking about marijuana, Dad?

Dad:                                  That's it!  That's the other name for grass!

Which led me to few questions of my own for Dad, who was in a particularly good mood that day even by his own relentlessly cheerful standards.  What had him thinking about marijuana and its pseudonyms?  Had he figured out how to use the internet on that new smartphone of his?  Exactly what were they doing over there at the senior living apartment building?

He explained that his new trivia book had a list of other names for marijuana.  He knew that I would know about marijuana.

It was Mr. Rip who asked the next obvious question.  "Why did you think Sharon would know about that particular subject Joe?"  

"Well, she's an intelligent person.  She knows things,"  answered my Dad without hesitation.

He always did have all the right answers.