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I promised to write about some of my good memories of working (and being at) The Corner Ice Cream Shop in Wake Forest, and here is the first in that series … better late than never.

For a good while, during my college years at Southeastern Seminary (they had B.A. program that I was enrolled in), I worked lunches at The Corner. This meant that I generally missed chapel services, but hey, a guy has to eat, ya know.

One chapel day, I was heading across campus when I spied a large tour bus parked in the loading zone just outside of the building. This, I knew, was going to be nothing but trouble. Ruth would NOT be happy, especially since it was recycling and trash pickup day, and the bus was between the trash and recycling and the street. As far as the folks operating the trash and recycling trucks were concerned, if they couldn’t see it, it didn’t exist. This was not good, since we barely had enough room to handle a weeks worth of refuse.

Once I crossed the street from the Seminary campus, I began inspecting the bus. It was idling, the door was wide open, and not a soul was to be found. My best guess was that it belonged to some group (or person) appearing in chapel that day … a guess that would be validated a bit later.

Once inside, as I expected, Ruth was indignant, to say the least. I attempted to manipulate the situation to my advantage by encouraging her to have the bus towed. After all, it was parked illegally. I figured it would be pretty cool to see a vehicle that size get towed.

Unfortunately, Ruth wasn’t up for that. Her idea was to call the seminary switchboard, verify that the bus did belong to somebody appearing in chapel, and then gripe about it a bit, which still provided a good bit of entertainment, though not as much as I had envisioned with the towing option.

Whoever answered at the switchboard promised to fetch the driver of said bus; true to their word, somebody arrived and the bus departed, thus ending my fun for the day.

Or so I thought.

I began washing dishes, and after a few minutes, I remarked to Ruth, “I’ll bet that’s the last time they park in our loading zone!”

The words hadn’t even cleared my lips before I saw the same bus round the circle just outside the window. As it approached the building, it slowed, and the driver navigated it right back into loading zone.

Ruth was quiet for a minute or so, and then said something … the exact words I don’t remember, but I’m relatively sure it was peppered with enough profanity to cause the most seasoned sailor you can imagine to blush in shame. Next thing I knew, she had burst through the back door to accost the driver.

About 30 seconds after Ruth’s hasty exist, one of our regular customers from one of the offices upstairs came in the front door, and ordered something. Whatever it was, it didn’t take me long to prepare for him, and he paid up, took his food, and started to exit.

“I wouldn’t go out there right now if I were you,” I said.

“Why is that?”

“You see that bus out there?”

“Ooooooooh,” he responded, with a growing smile. “Bet Ruth is happy!”

We opened the door and listened to a bit of the fire and brimstone that was being called down from on high. Eventually, we heard the driver yield to the verbal barrage by yelling “FINE”, and the bus shifted into gear, the engine roared into action, and the bus surged erratically out of the loading zone.

The driver didn’t go very far. As I recall, he moved forward about 150 feet, parked the bus in the middle of the street, and activated his hazard flashers. Made quite a mess of traffic while it was there.

But Ruth didn’t care. “At least he’s not in our @#$% loading zone!” … and the trash and recycling got picked up.