Free Ice Cream

I'm always up for free stuff. Free ice cream, free kid's meals, free $25 gift card with a transferred prescription, if it's free, I'm there. So when I was scrolling through every one's updates on Facebook this morning I was really excited when I saw that my friend Lori posted this:

I clicked on the link, read the fine print: Valid September 23rd only, 3oz scoop, one per person, yada, yada, yada.

I then texted my hubby to tell him where would be going after dinner, and a couple of other freebie loving friends.

I made sure that dinner was ready early so we'd have enough time to go out to Baskin Robbins, fight through the crowds with 3 little kids in tow, enjoy our ice cream, come home, clean up the kids, and still get them to bed at a reasonable time. When dinner was just about done I announced to Joey that we had a special surprise for him and we were going out for ice cream. His little face lit up. He loves going out for ice cream and he really loves treats after dinner. It was roughly 6:00 as we pulled up to the ice cream shop. "That's weird, there is like no one here," I said to Ron. "Maybe it wasn't as widely known as some of their other free scoop nights." He agreed, although we both began to think that maybe I got the wrong night or time or something. "Maybe not every Baskin Robbins is participating, maybe it's only a Connecticut thing," Ron tried to make sense of it all.

We hesitantly got the kids out of the car and went into the nearly empty Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts shop. We both began to nervously chuckle about the fact that it really didn't seem like a free scoop night, and anyone that we shared the news with (my freebie loving friends and Ron's whole staff at school) was more than likely standing at the ice cream counter thinking the same thing. And blaming us.

Anyway, it wasn't long before I realized that it definitely was not free scoop night at Baskin Robbins. First of all, they didn't even have the new special flavor that was featured on the Facebook page. Secondly, there was only 1 person working there. On free scoop night they always have a ton of employees behind the counter. And lastly, there weren't any signs, decorations, or a whole load of people as there usually is on free scoop night. (I told you, I'm an experienced *freebie* getter... I know the what to look for.)

Nevertheless, I had to ask. Just to be sure. Here is how the conversation went:

Me: "Um, you aren't by any chance giving away a free scoop of your newest flavor today?"
Personality-less teenage Baskin Robbins Employee: "No."
Me: "Oh, ok. I saw some Facebook thing about it. Is it coming soon?"
Employee: "Nope."
Me: Nervously laughing, "hmmm. That's weird.... ok, well, I guess we'll have... um, Joey what kind of ice cream do you want?"
While Joey picked out his flavor ("da white one, banilla" -so original) I just couldn't let it go: "Has anyone else come in here asking the same thing?"

The kid behind the counter just shook his head, seriously annoyed and wondering why I wouldn't leave him alone about giving me free ice cream. If he had more gusto he probably would have said something like, "Lady stop. There is no free ice cream today. Or tomorrow. Or any other day that I've heard of. Are you gonna get those kids some ice cream, or not? Because if not, I'd really like to go back to texting my girlfriend on my iPhone."

Yea, that's probably what he wanted to say but didn't.

When we got home I immediately logged on to Facebook to find out WTF my friend Lori had linked to. While I waited for the page to load I kept thinking, "how could I have gotten this wrong? I'm never wrong." Once the page was up I saw it right away. It was the first word I read. Carvel. The Baskin Robbins that we visited was not participating in Free Scoop Day. There was no free ice cream to be had at any Baskin Robbins because it was free scoop day at Carvel.