The tall German man stood uncertainly at the head of the vast aisle of freezer units which extended in front of him. Despite being much taller than his wife, his fearful demeanor made it seem as if he was cowering behind her like a child, even though he was just standing behind her normally.
“I’m scared,” Dirk Nowitzki said.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” replied his wife, Jessica. “It’s just ice cream.”
“I’ve never picked out ice cream by myself.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Yes you have. Don’t be silly.”
Other shoppers in the Dallas-area supermarket were beginning to recognize him, which made Dirk even more anxious. He felt the overwhelming urge to hide behind something, but there was nothing around that would effectively conceal him, so he just pressed against his wife for comfort. “No, I’m serious. I’ve never made an ice cream purchasing decision for myself. Not even a single ice cream cone. Ever.”
“You’re being dramatic right now.”
Dirk’s eyes traveled down the aisle. Even from his far vantage point, he could see at least three whole freezers filled with nothing but ice cream. And that wasn’t including the freezer full of ice cream-adjacent products. “Look at all those choices. I don’t even know what kind I like. Maybe I’ll just wait here and you can pick some out.”
There was more eye-rolling from his wife as she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the frozen foods aisle. He initially resisted, but quickly give up his resistance when he realized how foolish he must be looking to all the other shoppers. Now he found himself face-to-face with the intimidating amount of ice cream choices that none of his teammates, coaches, or friends had ever hinted would be waiting for him in the real world. How was one man supposed to bear the burden of this choice on his shoulders?
“I’m going to call Eddy,” Dirk announced, pulling out his phone to look at the contacts list entry for his ex-teammate Eddy Curry. “That guy definitely knew what kinds of ice cream were best.” But this brilliant plan was stymied when he got a generic “phone number disconnected” message instead of Eddy’s familiar voice extolling the virtues of “mint chocolate chip” (whatever that was).
“Or you could just read the labels and pick one,” Jessica said after her husband had sadly put his phone back in his pocket.
“I just decided that I’m gonna play another year so I shouldn’t be eating ice cream anyway,” Dirk said, but when he tried to quickly walk out of the aisle and to a part of the grocery store that he felt more comfortable with, Jessica’s hand once again grabbed him. He sighed and again faced the rows and rows of available ice cream flavors. “Okay, but when all my teammates next year are chastising me for my poor dietary choices, I’m telling them it’s your fault.”
Jessica pointed at one that had caught her eye. “This one has fudge swirls and caramel. That sounds good, right?”
“Maybe,” Dirk replied uncertainly. He noticed that another shopper was trying to pick out ice cream and he moved out of the way, feeling like he was an ice cream amateur compared to all these ice cream professionals. “Are we allowed to take samples?”
“No.”
“I could lick it and nobody would know. Just a little lick. Then I would know what it tastes like.”
“No.”
It occurred to Dirk that he didn’t necessarily have to pick out only one flavor. He still had plenty of money left over from his playing days. And if he needed to get rid of a bunch of flavors that he didn’t like, he could just invite Cubes over for an ice cream party. Was that something that people did? Ice cream parties? He thought about asking his wife, who was an expert hostess, but he already felt like he didn’t know anything about ice cream. He didn’t want to further showcase his ignorance. To make it seem like he knew what he was doing, he grabbed a carton of ice cream at random and peered at the label as if scrutinizing its ingredients. “Nea…Neapolitan,” he read aloud.
Jessica made a teasing look of disgust. “I don’t like strawberry.”
“Oh,” Dirk said. Somehow, on his first try, he had managed to pick a flavor that his wife didn’t care for. His already low enthusiasm for the project was further dampened by this, but he didn’t give up. He made sure that the next carton he picked out had no pink on it, because pink was a likely indicator of strawberry-flavored ice cream. “This one has peanut butter cups and fudge swirls. It’s called Moose Tracks. But I don’t think it has moose in it.”
When his wife replied with a neutral “that sounds nice”, Dirk put the carton in their shopping cart, feeling a sense of accomplishment roughly equivalent to that which he had felt when he had won his first and only championship. He felt like a door had been unlocked within his psyche, and when he finally decided to walk through that door, he would reach his full potential as a connoisseur of ice cream.