illiland Ice Cream Parlor

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

In the center of Lilliland was an ice cream parlor that everyone liked to visit and talk about. As ice cream parlors go, it had the usual number of ice cream flavors and assorted types of milk shakes. But it did have one thing that no other ice cream parlors had. It had a wishing well, or rather, two identical wishing wells.

When married couples were asked where they first met, most of the time they said at the ice cream parlor. But here is what made it different. The two identical wishing wells were unmarked. One was watched over by the spirit of Eros, or affection, and the other was watched over by the spirit of Thanatos, or disdain.

You were not allowed to through coins in the wishing wells. As the check was paid, a special coin was given and you had to make a wish and throw it into one of the wishing wells. However, you did not know for sure which wishing well you selected. If your date at the ice cream parlor developed into true romance, then the wishing well was Eros, but if you broke up with your date, then surely it was the Thanatos wishing well that received your coin.

The Baron often talked about this with his fiancée, Lady Angela of Alpine Castle. When they visited the ice cream parlor and were given a coin for the wishing well, they simply chose to leave the coin on the table. Why tempt the fate of the spirits when they were truly in love with each other?

Professor Hamblin, the Baron’s chief advisor, asked about the two wishing wells. He thought for a moment and said that as long as people treated the wishing wells as entertainment, and nothing more, then it was fine. But true relationships were built not on chance but the desire to share experiences of life together. Perhaps the owners of the ice cream parlor might do well to have a small sign near the wishing wells as a disclaimer. “We wouldn’t want any romantic couple to start an argument over which wishing well was the correct one to through the coin into.” It should be clearly understood that it was all in fun and good nature.

If a romantic couple visited the ice cream parlor only once a week for a year, half the time the coin would not go into the proper wishing well.