When I think of this word, the first thing that comes to mind is Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, an American ice cream parlor and sandwich chain that was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1963. The parlors had an early 1900s theme, with employees wearing period dress and straw boater hats, and each location featured a player piano.
From Wikipedia:
The “Zoo”, weighing 6 pounds, was made with five different flavors of ice cream, three sherberts, five toppings, bananas, whipped cream, nuts, and cherries. Another sundae was the hot fudge volcano, consisting of 30 scoops of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, and cherries, with a large side of hot fudge, and served with flaming sugar cubes doused in lemon extract. The “Pig Trough” or “Trough”, a sundae served in a mini pig trough, included ice cream, bananas, whipped cream, cherries, and nuts. It was meant for two, but if one person could eat the entire sundae, employees would come out banging on a drum, announce the accomplishment to the entire restaurant, and present the customer with either a ribbon or a pinback button that said, “I made a pig of myself at Farrell’s!”
This was my kryptonite as a kid. I would do chores, get good grades, and do whatever it took to get the ability to have this as the reward for doing well.
Where do you want to go for your birthday? Farrells.
What do you want to do after winning the big baseball game? Farrells.
Got all A’s on your report card? … Yea, like that ever happened.
Luckily, adulthood changed this. My borderline diabetes appreciated it when they closed the last one as the American public showed some decline in this type of gluttony.
Now, I ask myself this question: “When do you get to do something simply because it feels fucking good?”
Apparently, this is a more complicated question for me than it should be.
As a kid, indulgence usually came with a prerequisite. Do your chores and maybe we can go to Farrell’s. Win the baseball game and let’s celebrate. Birthday? Absolutely. Good report card? Sure, although that particular path to ice cream was considerably less reliable.
There was usually a reason.
Somewhere along the way, I think I carried that idea into adulthood. Enjoyment became something that came after the responsible shit was finished. Work first. Bills first. Family first. Projects first. Solve the problem. Fix the computer. Answer the email. Finish whatever needs finishing.
Then you can do something for yourself.
There’s just one small problem with that system. The responsible shit is never finished.
There is always another email. Something else needs fixing. Somebody needs something. The lawn grows back. Laundry apparently reproduces when left unsupervised. And computers seem to exist primarily to create problems that didn’t exist before I turned them on.
If I’m waiting until everything is finished before I allow myself to indulge in something purely because I enjoy it, I’m going to be waiting a very long time.
I think I’ve also gotten pretty good at creating a business case for the things I want.
Photography equipment is easy. I can potentially make money with it, so clearly that $2,000 lens isn’t an indulgence. It’s an investment.
Camping equipment? Necessary for outdoor recreation and personal wellness.
Geocaching? Exercise.
Going somewhere with my girlfriend? Relationship development.
Eating something ridiculously unhealthy? Supporting a local business.
I can justify damn near anything if you give me enough time and access to a spreadsheet. But why does pleasure require a business case?
Why can’t the justification occasionally be: I wanted to.
That’s uncomfortable for the responsible part of my brain. I’ve spent a lot of my adult life treating enjoyment like dessert. Finish everything you’re supposed to do first, then you can have some. The problem is that adulthood never finishes its fucking vegetables.
I’m not suggesting that I drain my bank account, abandon my responsibilities, buy every camera lens Nikon manufactures, and start eating six-pound ice cream sundaes for breakfast. There is probably a reasonable amount of space between responsibility and complete freakin’ anarchy.
I’m just starting to think that maybe enjoying my life doesn’t always have to be the reward for successfully managing it.
Sometimes I can take the trip because I want to take the trip. Buy something unnecessary because it makes me happy. Spend an afternoon taking photographs that nobody is paying me to take. Go geocaching when there are perfectly productive things I could be doing instead. Spend two days camping with my girlfriend and accomplish absolutely nothing that could reasonably be added to a résumé.
Although I did further damage my spine on a futon.
So technically I accomplished something.
Maybe that’s what indulgence means to me now. Not excess. Not irresponsibility. Not eating thirty scoops of ice cream while restaurant employees beat drums and publicly celebrate my impending diabetic coma.
Maybe it’s simply allowing myself to enjoy something without first proving that I’ve earned it. That’s a surprisingly difficult thing for me to do.
But yesterday I wrote about Permission, and apparently I’ve already established that I’m authorized to sign my own permission slips now.
So perhaps I should actually use one.
Reason for request: I want to.
Expected return on investment: I might enjoy myself.
Approved by: Me.
And if Farrell’s ever comes back, all bets are off.