A Sweet Excuse to Someone Who Matters

Skip the freezer, yes — that’s exactly where this story starts.
Because Ice Cream Sandwich Day isn’t really about what’s sitting in your drawer or whether you’re Team Chocolate Chip or Classic Wafer.
It’s about flavour — not the one on your tongue, but the one sitting across from you with her feet on your sofa and a laugh that sounds like glitter in a blender.

Your bestie.

She’s not vanilla. She’s whatever the opposite of vanilla is.
She’s bold, unpredictable, loyal to a fault, the kind of person who got you banned from that frozen yoghurt place and didn’t even flinch.
Not messy. Just fearless.

And what better day to honour her than a holiday that’s basically a dessert-themed love letter?

Let’s be honest: most people scroll past this kind of day without so much as a raised spoon.
But here? At Amoware? We see it differently.
Ice Cream Sandwich Day isn’t about sugar, it’s about sweetness.
Not the processed kind. The real kind. The friendship kind.

So Skip the Freezer and Gift the flavour

She’s rocky road when you’re having a breakdown.
She’s mint chip when you’re spiralling.
She’s cookie dough when you’ve hit rock bottom and need a laugh.
There isn’t one word for her. But there are flavours.
She’s not just “fun,” or “nice,” or even “strong.”
She’s the kind of person who defies all those words, all quiet presence and sharp timing.
The kind of nice that doesn’t need an announcement.
She’s a swirl of emotional contradictions that somehow work.
Sweet but sharp.
Unfiltered but loyal.
Occasionally passive-aggressive, but she’d fight a bear for you without even removing her earrings.

And that’s what I love about these silly, made-up holidays.
They don’t come with pressure.
They’re not about roses or champagne or the weird obligation to define your relationship.
They’re just invitations.
Little gaps in the calendar to remember: she matters.
And I think that’s what I’d been trying to say all along.

Ice Cream Sandwich Day is not the time to get serious.
It’s the time to lean into play.
To turn metaphor into meaning.
To pick a gift that says, “You’re the sprinkles in my chaos.”

We were ten. Maybe eleven.
It was summer, obviously, and the local corner shop had this cheap plastic sign out front with a faded cartoon penguin holding two dripping ice cream sandwiches.

We pooled our coins. She always had more coins. I always had crumbs.
We sat on the curb, feet in the road, unwrapping frozen sandwiches like they were bars of gold.
I dropped mine. Obviously.
It cracked in half, landed cream-side down, and my reaction was cinematic.

She didn’t say anything. Just stood up, walked back into the shop, and came out with another.
Handed it to me like it was no big deal, like anyone would’ve done the same.
That was her.
No drama. No lecture.
Just immediate action and a raised eyebrow.

And that’s when I knew she was a keeper.
Not because she made a scene.
But because she fixed it, like she always does, without making me feel stupid for dropping it in the first place.

You don’t forget those moments.
They lodge themselves somewhere in your chest.
The good ones. The weird ones.
The ones where you realise that love, real, chaotic, flawed, flavourful love, doesn’t always show up in candles and cards.
Sometimes, it shows up in ice cream sandwich form.

So, I started a list.
Not of ingredients. Of moments.

Like the time she sent me a voice note just to roast my Spotify playlist, brutal, specific, and kind of deserved.
I’m just glad she hasn’t seen my YouTube one.

Or when she turned up at my door with nachos and glittery pyjamas because she “had a hunch” I was spiralling.

These aren’t Hallmark memories.
They’re messy. They’re loud.
And they are absolutely delicious.

So I thought: What would it look like to gift that?
Not just a present. A flavour. A personality. A memory in object form.

That’s when I sat down on the floor, surrounded by torn notebook pages and half-thought ideas, and stared into the void of my own emotional chaos.

And that’s when Leah walked in.

She didn’t knock. She never does.
Just walked in like the seasoned emotional locksmith she is, gave me a look, and said:
“You’re spiralling again.”

I never told her about my bestie. Never needed to.
Leah sees things. Scary.

I waved a spoon at her.
“It’s Ice Cream Sandwich Day. And somehow, that made me think about her again.”

She raised an eyebrow. The same kind of eyebrow my bestie used to raise.

Leah didn’t ask. She never does.
Just nodded, soft.
“You’re trying to write her flavour down, aren’t you? The mystery girl.”

I nodded.

She paused, looked around at the emotional tornado I’d created, and said,
“Max… maybe you don’t need to find the perfect thing. Maybe you already felt it. And maybe… that’s enough.”

Something pinged.
Not an idea. A realisation.

I didn’t need to invent her flavour.
I just needed to remember it.

I went quiet for a bit.
And Leah, who knows me well enough to let silence do its work, just sat down on the edge of the sofa and waited.

I thought about her again. The bestie. The one who’s always been there, but never quite pinned down.
The one whose flavour I’d been trying to name like it was a quiz I needed to pass.

And then it hit me.

It wasn’t about choosing the perfect object. It never was.

It was the playlist insult. The nacho rescue. The swapped sandwich on the pavement.

Those weren’t gifts. They were the flavour.

What I’d been trying to find, I’d already lived.

And maybe the point wasn’t to wrap it.
Maybe the point was to remember it.
And then, to try, in my own Max-ish way, to give a little bit of that back.

So I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do:
I wrote this.
All done by myself.
Without Leah.

She just stared at me. Said nothing.
Which, coming from her, is basically applause.

I think what gets me most is this:
When we try to give someone a gift like this, we’re not saying “I saw this and thought of you.”
We’re saying: “I see you. I see your swirl. I see your mess. And I remember your flavour.”

You don’t need a birthday or anniversary for that.

Sometimes, all you need is a very niche national holiday, a half-melted childhood memory, and just enough emotional courage to write it down.

Because Ice Cream Sandwich Day might just be the perfect excuse to celebrate your favourite human the way they actually are:
Sweet, chaotic, completely unrepeatable.

And maybe… grab two spoons.
Just in case.