who would have thought that a simple trip to marble slab could turn out to be sooo much fun. let's rewind....i called laura-anne tonight just as she was getting back in town, and the two of us decided that we needed some marble slab in our lives. the only problem is that neither of us have any money. especially not any money to blow on something like ice cream. luckily, we didn't let that stop us. i searched my room and found a few dollars in change to get us started, then i headed over to la's. we put all of my change plus her handfuls of nickels into a cup and hoped for the best. we drive on over to marble slab only to see that it costs $3.59 for just one thing. being slightly discouraged, we went back out to the car to check around for more loose change. we searched all the purses in the car, checked the cupholders that were full of trash, tried the center console, the floor in both the front and back, and even dug through the trunk. every time we found more change we screamed all super loud and got some quite interesting looks from passersby, but it was well worth it because we ended up with $8.43!! unfortuntely, we still had a problem. la may have a knack for math, but that doesn't mean she's flawless. she definitely made an error in figuring out exactly how much we needed so we thought we were still about a quarter short. we had only one option.....the parking lot. we started by just looking near the car, but before long we had covered pretty much the whole parking lot and we'd made our way over to bed, bath, and beyond. needless to say, we really wanted our ice cream. as we made our way back towards marble slab, we began to realize our defeat. but i so brilliantly suggested that we go back inside and see if there was anything cheaper on the menu. we looked and looked with no luck. la had just turned to me and insisted that we didn't have enough money when out of the blue, super nice guy behind the counter asks how much we have. we told him and he assured us that it was enough. we coudn't believe our ears! could we really be on our way to enjoying the yummy goodness that is marble slab?!?! we even had him check it on the register and sure enough, la had made a math error and we did indeed have enough money. so this super nice guy, zac, helped la while some other guy helped me and we ended up with our yummy yummy ice cream. then it was time to pay. each of us only had one unoccupied hand, so zac had to help us count out all of our change. as we're all counting, he makes us feel a bit better by letting us know that he, too, has a change jar that decided whether or not he can make a purchase. there was an instant bond based on the poverty that we all share. la even told him about us searching the parking lot for change for about 10 minutes. he laughed pretty hard at us for that one, but then he let us know that anytime we want some ice cream, he could help us out. he told us to just bring in whatever money we had and he'd make up the difference. yeah, he so thought we were cute. so anyway, we ended up with our ice cream, no more money, and an offer from zac to help us out anytime we're a little too low on cash to afford marble slab. though our little trip to ice cream heaven turned out to take over an hour, it was a fabulous start to a night full of a whole lot of laughs!!!!