I see it.
The myth.
The glowing green & blue Family Mart sign downstairs flickers like divine Morse code:
“It’s time, Tanya.”
My heart drops into my intestines.
The soft-serve machine — the one I’ve prayed for since being exiled back to Taiwan after my stroke —
is ON.
Ten years.
Ten long, ice-creamless years.
Ever since the Canadian dream melted faster than a cone in Taipei’s humidity,
I’ve been living with my mom,
a born-again optimist trapped in a realist’s body.
And today, God finally rewards me —
not with love, not with success,
But with Family Mart’s Rum Raisin Soft Serve.
Act I: The Calling
I sprint — well, limp dramatically — back home.
Kick open the door like a one-woman SWAT team.
“Mom! MOM!”
I yell,
panting like a dog in July.
“Buy-one-get-one-free at Family Mart!
God is REAL!”
Mom gives me the same look she gave me when I told her I wanted to major in fashion.
A look that screams: “You hopeless creature.”
Then she sighs, slips on her slippers,
and follows me anyway —
because she knows this is a spiritual emergency.
Act II: The First Bite
I bite.
Yes, bite.
Because apparently, I’m a mutant who chews ice cream instead of licking it. It’s a quirk that adds a unique flavour to my ice cream experience.
It could be a gene defect.
Maybe I was dropped on the head as a baby.
Either way —
The cold hits my teeth like a slap from the Ice Queen herself,
And I love it.
Then —
The flavour blossoms.
The Italian red grape concentrate dances first,
swirling in fruity seduction.
Then comes that whisper of rum —
not enough to get drunk,
but enough to remind me of being 18,
stealing liquor from my dad’s cabinet,
and pretending I understood heartbreak.
It’s mature.
It’s gentle.
It’s like nostalgia wearing a silk robe and winking at me.
Act III: Flashbacks
Suddenly I’m in Canada again,
standing in a snowstorm,
triple-scoop cone in hand,
realizing for the first time
That ice cream doesn’t melt when the world’s frozen.
I remember Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins,
and McDonald’s soft serve —
But none of them tasted like this.
Because this one,
this rum raisin beauty,
tastes like redemption
and regret mixed in one perfect swirl.
I remember being anorexic —
still sneaking spoonfuls of ice cream,
because it was the only sweetness left in my miserable calorie-counting hell.
And later, post-stroke,
drinking melted ice cream through a straw in a hospital bed,
promising myself:
“As long as this sweetness still slides down my throat,
I’m not done yet.”
Act IV: The Cone
Don’t underestimate the cone.
That golden wafer shell —
a humble 54.8 calories of crispy mediocrity —
crunches like ASMR for my soul.
It’s not fancy.
It’s not proud.
But it’s there.
Like that quiet friend who always shows up,
even when life’s gone full dumpster fire.
Act V: The Comedown
Mom watches me with a mixture of disgust and mild concern.
“You look like a junkie,” she says.
I lick the dripping rim of redemption from my wrist and whisper,
“This… is my cocaine.”
By the last bite,
the world unwinds.
The hum of the refrigerator is a hymn.
And for one brief, holy moment,
I see:
Perhaps I may actually dislike Taiwan.
Maybe, in this wacky little island,
I only needed something to smile about again —
Apparently, something like that costs NT$49.
Finale: Epiphany
This isn’t just ice cream.
It’s poetry made edible.
It’s therapy in a cone.
It’s what happens when Italian grapes, Taiwanese humidity,
and one hopeless, stroke-surviving, ice-chewing woman
collide in divine absurdity.
Rum Raisin didn’t just melt in my mouth —
It resurrected my will to live.
Act 0.5: The Legend of the Lost Soft Serve
Before today’s miracle, before the Rum Raisin revelation,
There was The Incident.
My mother — my seventy-something, Leo-born, forever-skeptical mother —
the woman who gave me life,
who raised a runaway,
and who has survived my drama, my stroke, my ADHD, and my bad taste in men —
has only ever heard about the Family Mart soft-serve from me.
Every time I told her, “Mom, Family Mart has ice cream!”
She’d squint like I’d just claimed aliens abducted me.
“Yeah, right,” she’d mutter,
rolling her eyes,
probably thinking: ‘Here she goes again, another of her delusions.’
But what I didn’t know —
what my disabled, stay-at-home self couldn’t know —
was how desperately she believed.
Scene: Kaohsiung Train Station, 2024
Picture this:
two old grandmas in their seventies —
my mom and my aunt —
clutching their handbags like Olympic torches,
racing through Kaohsiung train station,
sweating pearls of determination,
searching for the mythical Family Mart ice-cream machine.
I wasn’t there.
But the vision haunts me.
The chaos.
The panting.
The echo of their voices bouncing off the tiled walls:
“Where is it? WHERE IS THE FAMILY MART WITH ICE CREAM?!”
And there I was, miles away,
completely unaware,
probably chewing ice cubes at home like a psychopath,
while two elderly women risked dehydration chasing after my hearsay.
The Guilt
When I later heard the story,
My soul folded in half like a melted cone.
I imagined them—
my mom and my aunt—
drenched in Kaohsiung’s humidity,
staring at a Family Mart that had everything except an ice cream machine.
I swear, I could hear her inner voice screaming:
“TANYA LIED. THERE IS NO ICE CREAM.”
I wanted to crawl into a freezer and die beside a tub of Häagen-Dazs.
Redemption Arc
So when I saw that glowing Family Mart downstairs in our new neighbourhood,
machine humming, cone graphic spinning like a divine halo,
I didn’t just see ice cream; I saw it.
I saw salvation.
Not just for me —
But for the two brave grandmas
who once sprinted through Kaohsiung in the name of dairy.
When I ran home to drag my mom downstairs this time,
It wasn’t about buy-one-get-one-free anymore.
It was about redemption.
About proving that the myth was real.
And when that swirl of Rum Raisin finally kissed her tongue,
I swear, I saw twenty years of skepticism
melt right off her face.
For the first time in a long time,
We weren’t arguing,
or worrying,
or surviving.
We were just two ice-cream addicts,
licking forgiveness off a cone.