Long live the red and white striped vests!

When I was a little kid, my family spent every birthday or special event at an ice cream parlor called Farrell's. Farrell's was the most awesome place in the world, because of the following reasons:

• It was an ice cream parlor. (Yum, ice cream sundaes!)
• The exit was a candy store. (Yum, sugar!)
• There was a piano that played songs--on its own! It used scrolls, but no pianist.
• It was loud.

Let me explain that last bullet. You might think loud as in, "My, there are a lot of families here, and their children are excitable and speaking in loud voices." No, that is not the kind of loud I mean. I'm talking about sirens blaring and the chaos that ensued after they started wailing.

Every kid who grew up in Southern California knew what those sirens meant. We knew that as soon as the sirens started, we'd better put down our spoons, and pull our feet out of the aisles. Because momentarily, the place would be filled with running waiters.

The waiters dashed through the restaurant, over booths, through the different rooms. One waiter carried a big bass drum, pounding it violently, and two other waiters carried a stretcher on their shoulders. The stretcher held a gigantic bowl of ice cream (30 scoops!), and every kind of topping you could imagine. It was also filled with little plastic choking hazards--er, animals. And every kid from Southern California knows what this delicious monstrosity was called--the Zoo.



We never got the Zoo. I witnessed it descending on other families, and wished more than anything to be invited to a party where some lucky birthday boy or girl celebrated with a Zoo. But it never happened. What did happen was that I grew up, and Farrell's went out of business. My dream died a quiet little death as the last player-piano stopped playing, and the siren was silenced forever...

Until...this past weekend!!! A friend mentioned Farrell's, and that one had returned to Southern California. I couldn't get my smartphone to work fast enough. And then I found it, an hour away, but still in the state. Farrell's lives! And so did my Zoo dream.

I immediately texted my brother Smed, who shared my dream. He was equally excited beyond belief.

And so, this past weekend, we made it happen. We loaded the car with our family and friends, and drove an hour to relive our youth. And yes, my friends, we got the Zoo!!!




We got there early, to avoid the Saturday night crowd we imagined would fill the place. We looked over the menu, and my brother pointed out one menu item which was not part of our childhood memories--beer! Yes, you can order beer at Farrell's--the day kept getting better and better.



Everyone but Mark and I ordered dinner, a choice I knew they would regret.

"You aren't eating dinner?" my cousin Kathleen asked me.

"I'm having THE ZOO for dinner!" I answered.

"But you aren't eating dinner first?" my friend Edra asked. Obviously, they were unclear on the whole reason for coming here!

"I'm eating THE ZOO for dinner!" I yelled. (It really is loud in there!)

"What about Mark?" our friend Shanda asked.

"He's eating the Zoo, too!" I said. Seriously, people, we didn't come for the food--we came for the ice cream!

But then the guilt set in, and I kinda felt like a bad mom feeding Mark only ice cream. I made him order an appetizer we could split, and he chose mozzarella sticks. So yes, I had beer, fried cheese and ice cream for dinner.

Luckily, we got a waiter who was happy to fulfill our Zoo dreams.

"Are there any ice cream flavors you don't want?" he asked helpfully, taking our order.

"No!" Smed and I both shouted.

"Any toppings you don't want? We have pineapple, cherry, chocolate--"

Smed and I cut him off. "We want it all!" Smed answered. I smiled at him--we were both thinking the same exact thing--we wanted everything the Zoos of our childhood contained, whether we liked it or not! If it was on the Zoo then, it better be on our Zoo now!

Our awesome waiter conned the staff into not one, but two, laps around the restaurant with our Zoo. He screamed a whole story about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean with ice cream, or some other nonsense, but I couldn't focus on his words. The minute that siren went off, Smed and I jumped out of our seats, cameras ready.

Our Zoo! I waited a long time for this...

They made it a lot harder to choke on the plastic animals.

Childhood dreams fulfilled!! Oh yeah, and our kids liked it, too.

The aftermath, aka Sometimes childhood dreams kick your butt.
I told them not to order dinner!!

It turned out to be the coolest night. I joked about how old we were now, that a big Saturday night out was whooping it up in an ice cream parlor, instead of a bar.

The kids were all jacked up on a sugar high. Corban and Johnny were running all over the place, and Corban's dad took turns spinning both little boys around in circles. They were laughing wildly, until suddenly, Corban was vomiting instead. Yup, right there in the middle of the restaurant, he upchucked all his sundae. Turns out our grown-up Saturday night ended the same way as many of our bar-going Saturday nights after all!

We made a quick exit after that. We were full, and completely overstimulated by all the screaming waiters, sirens, and drums. But we were also happy beyond belief.