A quaint, two-story house sits on the corner of Route 28 and Neel Road in Harwichport, Massachusetts. Orange umbrellas and picnic tables dot the small yard on the right side, and string lights illuminate the trees when the golden sun sets. A line of people wraps around the deck into the parking lot. Their faces are smiling, and laughter can be heard ringing through the warm summer air. An OPEN flag waves in the wind and sits on a large sign that reads “SchoolHouse Ice Cream and Yogurt. We Make Our Own!” 

The scene perfectly captures a classic summer night on Cape Cod. Happy families gather around the picnic tables, with pink cheeks and lots of chatter. Groups of friends come in oversized t-shirts and flip flops, some just starting the night and others ending it. Later on in the night, couples stumble in from the bars filled with booze and sing along to the music the employees are dancing to inside. The image is picture-perfect. If I could freeze one of those nights and stay there forever, I would. 

The picturesque moment may be the one that I would hang on my wall, but there is a fair share of absurd and whacky stories from my nights there that I will pull out on a day when I need a good laugh.

“Do you remember banana split woman?” employee Dani Healy texted the work groupchat one morning in March. On this particular day, I had been feeling down and in need of a pick-me-up. Ironically, I was planning on swinging by the supermarket on the walk back from class to get a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. My mind drifted off to the warm night in July when the banana split woman had visited SchoolHouse. 

After a long and busy Saturday night, it was finally time to shut the windows and lock the doors. Chris, Dani, Tommye, and I were on the closing shift that night, and it had been seven hours since the changeover. We were all drained. As soon as the closed sign goes up, so does the volume on the radio. For the next half an hour, the store is scrubbed and tidied until the black-and-brown tiles are turned black-and-white again. Usually, the customers have cleared out by this point. However, on this particular day, two groups were left sitting by the picnic tables.

We shut the porch lights off, signaling that we were going home. As we emptied out the registers and logged in our hours, we heard loud banging against one of the windows.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” said Tommye. “We open at 11 a.m. tomorrow.”

“We already got our ice cream,” the man at the window replied. “My wife fell when you shut the lights off. Do you have any bandaids?” 

We then immediately rushed to get the first aid kit, feeling guilty that the woman had hurt herself because of our actions. The man took the bandaids, waved, and walked away. We shut the window again, assuming that the interaction was done and that we were good to go. We jumped to that conclusion a little too fast. The banging on the window started again.

“Can I speak with your boss, please?” The man asked.

“Sure, we can call up, but she may be asleep at this hour,” I replied. 

“Okay, then can I speak with him?” He asked again, pointing at Chris. This angered Tommye, and she stated that she was the manager and that speaking to Chris wouldn’t be necessary. At this point, the man began cursing us out. It was a blur of words, but from what I remembered after the fact it included a lot of name-calling, some insults, a little bit of character judgment, and a sprinkle of misogyny. 

When he finished yelling and walked away, the four of us stood there staring at each other, silent. Not even 30 seconds later, there was a large bang outside and a few crashing noises. We turned back towards the window, and none of us could believe our eyes. Three banana splits had been thrown toward us. Luckily, none had made it in the window, but they were all over the windows and the deck.

“Fuck you! Fuck this place!” The man yelled, and proceeded to flip us all off as he walked back towards his car. After a few seconds of silence again, we broke out into laughter. There was nothing to do but laugh in this situation. The other group outside slipped a sticky note through the window as they left. The sticky note read the name of a legal consultant and a phone number. We left it on the back desk for our boss to find, and continued to laugh on the way out. It was one of those times where you know you are creating a memory while it is still happening. Despite the fear and adrenaline running through my body, the laughter I experienced that day is not one that comes around very often.

“How could we not?” Tommye replied to the text. Another one read “she hurt her leg so her partner naturally threw the banana split at us. Totally reasonable.”

I still went to pick up the ice cream. The memory brought a rush of joy, one that I desperately needed on that cloudy March day. However, now I was really craving ice cream…

The employees that make SchoolHouse the happy place that it is. Eleven names are listed on the whiteboard that hangs from the freezer door. In red Expo marker, the list reads: Dani, Caitlyn, Connor, Tommye, Lily, Roisin, Chris, Emily, Kalea, Will, and Olivia. Each person brings a unique personality and spunk to the store, and when we’re all together it is this explosion of great energy and chaos. The happiness I feel in those moments is one that leaves an imprint that carries me through the rough days of winter and tumultuous friendships at school. There is not a day when I regret walking through the doors of SchoolHouse to ask about a summer job. In fact, it is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

“I have made my best friends here, and some of my best memories here,” employee Kalea told me. “It’s not just a summer job anymore. It’s a home.”

Through getting yelled at, shifts that last until one in the morning, raccoons in the dumpsters, and even a tornado, the employees at SchoolHouse will never stop loving their summer home.

“I miss you all,” said Olivia. “I’m counting down the days until we see each other again.”

It is hard to imagine a summer where I won’t be returning to the little house with the checkered floors and the sweet, sugary smell. When it is winter in Boston and there is snow falling outside of my tiny apartment windows, I long for the smiling faces of my coworkers and the sunshine beaming through the open doors. The golden image holds not only a place in my head, but in my heart.