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From the Archives – ‘Sugar Rush’ by Aoife Sheehan

Recipe for an Oreo Extreme:

  1. Drizzle cup with chocolate sauce
  2. Fill halfway with whipped ice cream
  3. Dust with crushed biscuit crumbs
  4. Oreo sauce
  5. Add a scoop of Oreo ice cream
  6. Repeat steps 2–4 
  7. Garnish with a full Oreo on top and serve

The ice-cream parlour is decked out in whites and pastels. Framed menus display decadent specials, ice-cream flavours show off their bright colours, sugary toppings do their best to catch your eye. Close to the beach, it’s appropriately decorated with memorabilia; parasols in the corner and ‘sun, sea and sand’ slogans printed on canvases from Etsy. The stuff charming Instagram pictures are made of.

I hate it.

Dealing with overheated customers is despairing work; you’re calling “who’s next?” but can see through the window that the queue has wrapped onto the street, and you’re not getting a chance to breathe anytime soon.

Too many teenagers in a too small kitchen with no air conditioning during a heatwave. The sticky feeling never leaves.

Recipe for a Bueno Bliss:

  1. Drizzle cup with Kinder Bueno sauce
  2. Whipped ice cream
  3. Sprinkle crushed walnuts
  4. Bueno sauce
  5. Half a Bueno bar
  6. A scoop of Bueno ice cream
  7. Repeat steps 2–4
  8. Add second half of Bueno bar on top and serve

The others are polite but uninterested in becoming friends. Hi, how are you? Not too bad, yourself? Can’t complain – and there the conversation stilts. Every day. 

My parents are away. A childhood fear of disturbing my sister meant her room was off limits. The longer the hours, the less time for friends. Most human contact limited to the staff; small talk, an air of indifference, the sense that they couldn’t give a damn permeating through the room like the smell of the sticky Oreo sauce.

Recipe for your worst summer job:

  1. Add one heatwave mixed with no air conditioning
  2. Queues that stretch down the street
  3. A generous serving of overtime
  4. Stir in people you see every day but will never befriend
  5. A crêpe plate that’s a bitch to clean but you’ll have to take care of every night
  6. Add a late night wait for the bus (remember to avoid the drunken men!)
  7. Add stickiness, a large dash of loneliness, and serve as one of your worst summer memories

‘Sugar Rush’ by Aoife Sheehan was originally published in Issue 1 of Paper Lanterns, back in 2020.