Small Humiliations: Part XIV / by Courtney Mehlhaff

Several years ago, when I worked at Marshall Field's HQ (before it began its sad, deranged, Hulk-like morph into Macy's), my coworkers and I often traveled the 12 floors down to the lower-level food court to partake in the frosted delight that is Fruigurt. What's Fruigurt, you ask? Why, only frozen yogurt that comes with multiple fruit and nut toppings of your choosing and is the perfect afternoon snack, especially with an employee discount.

One day, we all piled into line and placed our various orders. I got what I always do, a chocolate and vanilla twist cone, while another coworker finally emerged holding a tall smoothie cup with a straw.

"What did you get?" I asked him.

"A Triple Berry Threat," he said.

I scanned the menu board.  "A what?"

"Triple Berry Threat."

I checked the menu again. Finally I found the item description and began giggling so hard I could barely get the next sentence out.

"Treat . . . not threat. . . it's Triple Berry Treat."

By that time he was laughing, too. But I liked the new name so much that I decided to pay tribute to his hasty (or slightly myopic) reading of the Fruigurt choices by using my extremely limited photo-shopping skills to create the following poster, which I sent to him via email later that day:

It still makes me laugh.