Empire on Ice #34: Kidding Around

[Josh is working at a desk, frustrated. Silence is sitting on a sofa in the same room, eating a tub of ice cream with foreign letters and a picture of a goat on the label. Josh scowls, gets up from his desk, and begins pacing.]

Josh: Some weeks it's hard to be funny.

Silence: What do you do then?

Josh: I don't push it. The world will be funny for me, sooner or later.

Silence: In time for your Empire on Ice deadline, though?

Josh: Er…I haven't exactly been spot-on with those deadlines anyway.

Silence: Well, would you like to do anything in the meantime?

Josh: How about we count the number of popcorn spackles on this radical 1980s ceiling?

Silence: Already did. About seventy thousand.

Josh: You lie.

Silence: There's only one way to find out.

Josh: Maybe I was bluffing about wanting to do that!

Silence: I think you were.

Josh: What are you eating?

Silence: Goat kebab.

Josh: It looks like ice cream.

Silence: Goat kebab ice cream.

Josh: I have two questions about that.

Silence: If one of them is can you have some, the answer is nope.

Josh: First question: Goat?

Silence: It's a savory ice cream. Those are allowed to exist. It's really mellow, actually.

Josh: Second question: Kebab?

Silence: I like kebab!

Josh: I mean, did they grind up the skewers into it or something?

Silence: Beats me. I'd have to read the ingredients, and why would I do that when I can just eat the ice cream? Putting something in front of my face to read means not putting something in front of my face to eat.

Josh: Where did you buy it?

Silence: That's three questions.

Josh: I thought you liked questions.

Silence: I do, but answering them just now makes it hard to eat ice cream.

Josh: What if I bought you another carton?

[A light bulb goes off over Silence's head.]

Silence: That's why I like you, Boss. You always know how to strike a bargain where everybody wins.

Josh: Thank you.

Silence: Afiach told me about it. She's from some crazy foreign country with an umlaut in the name where this stuff is all the rage, and it turns out there's a shop down in the International District catering to umlautish expats. I go there every Tuesday anyway for dim sum, hot pot, ramen, wonton, sushi, mochi, and yakiniku!

Josh: Is that all?

Silence: And to manage my global shipping operations.

Josh: You have a shipping company? What do you ship?

Silence: Mostly diamond ingots.

Josh: I didn't know they came in ingot form.

Silence: Mine do. Dunno what's wrong with your diamonds.

Josh: Can I try some?

Silence: Already said nope. I didn't bring enough to share.

Josh: It's a 64-ounce tub!

Silence: Exactly. And technically it's two liters.

[She finishes the carton and licks the spoon.]

Silence: In the words of Gordon Ramsay: "Ice cream: Done."

Josh: Looks like you…goat there.

Silence: >=(

Josh: Come now, Silence. It wasn't that…baaaaaaaad.

Silence: I would get up and strangle you, but that's kind of hard to do after eating two liters of ice cream.

Josh: A shame. It would have been very…capricious of you.

Silence: Nobody's going to get that, and it's not even strictly accurate.

Josh: Well, I was only kidding.