You Can't Micromanage The Snow Cone Guy

Today was Homecoming Sunday, the official start to a new church year. It's a big deal and among my program responsibilities is renting a snow cone machine for the picnic after the worship service.

Lessons I've learned-

• Rental comes with 100 pounds of loose ice in a big cooler. No, you cannot rent the machine without the ice, and they want to give you all that ice, even if you only need thirty or forty pounds of it. (Maybe there's a critical mass to keeping things cold enough in this semi-tropical Houston weather?)  We scatter the extra on the grounds, hoping the water trickles to our trees.
• Rental comes with four syrups of the company's choosing. Some years there are two syrups of the same flavor. Today one of the flavors was "Turtle"...thankfully it tasted more like green apple than anything involving my pet turtle.
• There's a delivery window, but chances are the machine will come a little before or after the window. Schedule it early enough that fifteen minutes after that window isn't too late. And have plenty of busy work to occupy yourself at 7 AM. Muttering darkly about 7 AM is not especially productive.
• Eighth graders love to operate the machine, and ninth graders love to teach the eighth graders how it is done. 
• You can sort of make snowballs out of snow cone ice.  They hurt more, though.
• Eat enough snow cone and your mouth will freeze and you won't care quite so much that it's still too hot outside.
• Filling a mug with snow cone ice and covering it with cold brew coffee?  Awww yeah.