You've seen me. A medium-sized mound with a friendly decorative face on it, an advertising gimmick, perhaps, that increases trade, but it gives me an individuality not possessed by other ice cream.

I'd be making it. But the establishment in whose ice box I dwell has run out of cones to give me the support I need to be sold. So I'm acknowledged useless and worthless.

I've heard the management outside my cubicle discussing "Bankruptcy." They mean that they may be going out of business; which explains the lack of cones. Well, why don't they get a simple cone and sell me?! That's $2.50 right there.

I am in the following dillemma: if no one sells me, I'll be considered waste matter and cleaned out. If someone does, I'll be sold and eaten. Either way I'll be gone. But my reposing in the freezer has given me time for philosophical speculation, and I believe I'd prefer to be sold and eaten, as is traditional. That would be more in the nature of existential action, supported by Earth custom. But being mopped out with a wet rag? Nada, man, that doesn't make it.

There is another danger: with all this talk of bankruptcy, the freezer may go on the blink. The friction producer will misalign, and the ions won't be made to produce cold, as I understand it from the semi-unemployed repairman's double-talk. I'd melt if that happens. And I get the impression if the repairman isn't given business, he might cause that breakdown to happen himself.

What can I do? Hire out as a logo stock figure to F&SF? "RUN" away? Hire into a shake? Promote myself as fast food for a fantasy film-watching society?

I have no mount, and I'm ice cream. How can I say it? I've got to have some cone! I am dependant on that form of support! It's not like I'm flipping out. Ice cream doesn't do that. But, well---you say you read SF? Try doing that over a dish of ice cream. You'll be about glad you listened to my advice. I have the "flavor" you want with your SF.

Don't let this opportunity melt away!