Ice cream: It’s everywhere on NC State’s campus. From the Creamery to the soft-serve machines at Case, Clark and Fountain Dining Halls, Howling Cow ice cream is a staple to any member of the Wolfpack. Yet, despite NC State’s immense love for our ice cream, one fact still remains: There’s no way to eat ice cream without making a fool out of yourself. 

Any student’s journey toward embarrassment with an ice cream eating endeavor starts as you approach the soft-serve machine. Grabbing the device’s lever with one hand and holding your cone with the other, you prepare to do battle with the machine. As gladiators once entered the Roman Colosseum to fight, you too enter the great battleground that is our dining halls as you pull down on the machine’s cold, silver handle and prepare to fight. 

Without so much as a warning, the ice cream immediately pours out of the machine into your cone with a pace faster than Usain Bolt taking speed. Always caught by surprise at the machine’s pace, the next five seconds you’re playing catch-up. Just a second behind, you frantically try to build a solid foundation, uniform swirls and a picture-perfect peak, all the while teetering on the edge of disaster. 

Without a doubt, you step away from the machine holding a disheveled mound of ice cream—something resembling a cross between a Picasso painting and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And if, by some miracle, you managed to make a cone that could get you a job at Dairy Queen, don’t be so proud of yourself. Your battle with your cone has only just begun. Heading back to your seat with your “cone,” the next problem presents itself: how on earth you actually go about eating it without making a fool of yourself. 

Three distinct techniques have been tried by NC State students for years, and they all end in the same feeling of humiliation. 

Many try the traditional lick technique, employing your body’s strongest muscle to eat the ice cream. Yet, the downfall to this technique comes from a different part of your face—your eyes. There you are, happily licking your ice cream looking around the dining hall. Suddenly, your eyes lock with a stranger just as you take an extra aggressive lick. They turn away as fast as possible, but the damage is done. For the rest of eternity, you are none other than the weird ice cream licker to them and whoever they tell about the incident. 

With the licking method presenting obvious downfalls, many students turn to the second technique, using your lips to scoop up and eat the ice cream. At first, this seems like an exceptional technique; it’s fast, effective and you don’t have to worry about being caught licking while looking at a stranger, but once you see someone else utilize this technique, its drawback is immediately presented. In your attempt not to use your tongue, you appear to be vigorously making out with your ice cream cone. There’s nothing worse than sitting down with a friend for dinner, looking down to take a bite of food, and then looking back up to see that he’s trying to get to second base with his ice cream. 

After looking like a fool when using your tongue or your lips, students will commonly turn to a third technique—using your teeth to bite the ice cream off the cone. In all my years of watching people eat ice cream, I have never seen someone successfully bite into the cold ice cream without wincing in pain. If you can do this, I’m here to say you are a god among men, and I worship you. But to the rest of us mere mortals, as soon we bite into the ice cream our teeth erupt in agony, and we’re forced to recoil, often shouting out in pain. Embarrassment quickly ensues when we realize we’ve just been hurt by a child’s treat. 

So take your pick of any of three techniques. Just know whatever you do, you’re more likely to end up as the main character of an embarrassing viral video than walking away with any sort of dignity still intact. Howling Cow ice cream, you’re amazing and we’d never trade you in for the world, but man, do you make a fool out of us all.