From the dark street, the gelato store glows bright and cheery, spilling white light onto the sidewalk. My eyes flicker through the room, the aqua chairs pulling at them like magnets, as the girl doles out two scoops of gelato with a metal spatula.

My friend is waiting outside as I bring him a small, wooden spoon with a sample of gelato. The flavor has been his favorite cereal since I was a kid, and so my heart skipped a tiny jump rope beat when I saw the label: Frosted Flakes.

He’s leaning against a car meter as though he’s holding it up, while talking to another friend whom I have not brought a sample for.

“Taste this,” I say holding the spoon between us.

He backs up an inch as though I’m offering him a skinned rat. His nose squints a wrinkle or two. “I don’t want it,” he says as if he’s offended I offered.

I push it closer to his face. “Just try it,” I say.

“Thank you, but I don’t want it.”

I feel like I’m trying to feed a small, unwilling child. I got the sample for him because I know he’ll get a kick out of it, because he’s special to me and I want to share the moment he tastes his favorite cereal in creamy gelato. I want to see his eyes light up. Besides, it’s barely half a teaspoon and I know he eats huge bowls of ice cream. Why won’t he take one stupid little taste?

“I got it for you.” I hold the spoon there. “Just taste a little bit.” Geez.

He’s annoyed at my persistence, but I know he cares enough for me to indulge me to a point. He leans in. The tip of his tongue touches the most minuscule edge. He reminds me of the brightly decorated Madagascar geckos that have adopted my parents as pets. They have a special blue plate, on which my parents leave slivers of banana. The geckos feast, with licks of their gelatinous tongues.

My friend’s face changes shape. His eyes flash intrigue and he takes a bigger lick. I transfer the spoon to his hand.

“What’s the flavor,” I ask, certain he’ll pin it the first try.

“Caramel,” he questions.

“No, it’s something you really like . . .” I take the spoon and give it a taste, thinking perhaps it doesn’t taste like the flavor it claims, but nope, it’s spot on.

He guesses wrong two more times. “Ok, taste it again, and this time I’m going to tell you what it is, as you taste it . . . Frosted flakes.”

His eyes light up. “It is.” He smiles like a little kid, surprised again at the wonderment of the world. “Frosted flakes.”

“Isn’t it cool,” I say in my higher octave voice, that I reserve for being a kid again.

“Pretty cool.” He licks the spoon and tosses it into the back of someone’s truck bed. I fish it out and deposit it into the trashcan, shaking my head.

*

 As we drive, I’m amused with the resistance he put up, in the face of one sample of gelato, that in the end, he turned out to love. I knew he would like it, because I knew what the flavor was. All he knew was that I was offering him a glob of whitish tan gelato.

What do I refuse in my life because I do not have all the facts? How many opportunities have I let slip by because I didn’t want a taste of something at that exact moment in time?

As the yellow eyes of the streetlights scroll past the car, I think about God and about how He knows everything. He knows all the flavors of the gelato. He knows that what I see, as an anonymous blob on a spoon, is something amazing, and so He tries to coax me to accept it, to take a tiny taste.

In my life, I am the friend who says, “Thank you anyway. I don’t want it,” but I don’t even know what IT is. God is the person holding the spoon thinking, “I have something really amazing for you. I want to see your face light up, to see you smile, to share that moment of excitement, realization, and surprise. I have cool things to give you. You just don’t know they’re cool yet. That’s why, when I give you the spoon . . . Just try it. Trust me. I have only your best interest in mind.”

With Love,

Z :)