A Drip of Destiny, a Puzzle Drop, and the Waffle Cone That Started It All
Hey, I know the internet's full of distractions, ghost stories, and hot takes—but before you vanish like a scared cat in a haunted house, give me a minute. This one's got heart, laughs, and maybe a spirit or two (the friendly kind, promise).
It’s time for another wild photo drop from P and T’z Baked Puzzles—and yes, the story behind today’s puzzle involves ice cream, mild trauma, and probably a ghost. But before you dive in, I need something from you. Actually, two things:
1. Check out the store ( https://p-and-tz-baked-puzzles.printify.me/ ). We’re building something fun, weird, and totally unique here—original photography turned into collectible jigsaw puzzles. Limited editions, strange backstories, and art you won’t find anywhere else. Support small biz, grab a puzzle, and tell your grandma you’re being cultured.
2. COMMENT ON THE PHOTO. Please. I beg. Last week I asked for your honest takes and the silence was louder than a dropped flashlight in a haunted forest. Was the photo cool? Confusing? Slightly cursed? I can’t read minds (yet), so drop your thoughts below. Be funny. Be weird. Be brutally honest. Roast it. Praise it. Pretend you're a judge on America’s Next Top Puzzle. Just say something. Your comments help me shape future puzzles—and future chaos.
And if that’s not enough excitement: I’m also writing a full-length novel (possibly the start of a series?) inspired by this entire strange, heartwarming, semi-haunted world. It stars P and T—non-binary best friends, lifelong partners in puzzle crime—who run a quirky, successful puzzle business while unraveling a ghost mystery that’s got more twists than a Rubik’s cube in a washing machine. The tone? Heartfelt, hilarious, and just weird enough to make you wonder if your attic is haunted too.
Alright, now scroll down for today’s photo and story. Just remember: buy a puzzle, drop a comment, and embrace the strange.
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The Cone of Destiny
(or: How I Accidentally Altered the Future by Choosing Rocky Road Instead of Butter Pecan)
Every great journey begins with a purpose. Some venture out seeking fame. Others, fortune. A select few seek both, ideally with free Wi-Fi.
But me?
I just wanted ice cream.
Not just any ice cream—Thrifty Ice Cream. That glorious, creamy, nostalgia-laced cylinder scoop of frozen elegance sold inside the fluorescent cathedrals we call Rite-Aid. While others pass through its sliding glass doors in search of toothpaste, foot cream, or a discounted stuffed flamingo left over from Valentine’s Day 2017, I enter Rite-Aid with reverence in my step and a cooler in my trunk just in case the freezer section starts acting suspicious again.
Now, let's be clear: Thrifty Ice Cream is the second-best ice cream in the entire known multiverse.
Number one, of course, is mine. Homemade. Crafted in small batches with the same care a bald eagle gives its eggs or Nicolas Cage gives his film roles. But Thrifty? Thrifty is reliably second-best. And that counts for something.
My ritual is sacred. The Bottom Scoop must always be Pecan Praline. It is the bedrock, the foundation, the waffle cone’s structural engineer. The other two scoops—the “freelancers”—change with the mood, the weather, the position of the stars, and whether or not the Rite-Aid employee behind the counter is in the mood to pretend they know what “Circus Animal Cookie Avalanche” is.
So, there I was, on a Tuesday that felt like a Thursday wearing a Wednesday hat. I walked into the Rite-Aid with $4.99 in cash, two pennies I didn’t want to acknowledge, and a craving in my soul. The place smelled faintly of disinfectant and expired bubblegum, which I took as a sign from the universe: today would be a three-scooper.
I approached the counter. The ice cream freezer was lit up like a Vegas slot machine, each flavor standing proudly under that frosty curved glass like contestants in a dairy pageant. Pecan Praline sat in the corner, gleaming, winking at me like it knew it was about to be eaten like royalty. I nodded back.
“Three scoops,” I said to the teenager behind the counter, who looked like he had recently lost a battle with algebra and was taking it out on humanity.
“Cup or cone?” he asked with the enthusiasm of a sedated cactus.
“Waffle cone,” I said, as one must when one respects the architecture of dessert. “Bottom scoop: Pecan Praline.”
He raised an eyebrow. I ignored it.
The second scoop I chose was Mint ‘n Chip, because I enjoy eating toothpaste when it’s dressed up in chocolate. The third scoop… and this is where the story takes a turn… was Rocky Road.
Now, I hadn’t chosen Rocky Road in a while. Not because I dislike it, but because the last time I did, a pigeon exploded near my car and I took it as a message from the beyond. But today, I was feeling bold. Risky. Alive.
Rocky Road.
The teenager scooped it with surprising grace. For a brief moment, I thought I saw a flash of light in the freezer case, like someone taking a photo from inside the vat of Rainbow Sherbet. But I shook it off.
I paid, walked outside, and took a triumphant lick.
And that’s when time… shifted.
Time didn’t stop—it wobbled.
Like a Jell-O mold on a rollercoaster.
Like a chihuahua on espresso.
Like my left ankle when I accidentally stepped on a rogue flip-flop in 2009.
And yet, nobody else noticed.
There I stood, just outside the Rite-Aid, licking a three-scoop wonder cone like it was the Holy Grail in edible form. The sun sparkled off the pecan praline like an Instagram filter from the gods. Mint ‘n Chip held steady in the middle, offering balance, responsibility, and breath-freshening joy. And on top, Rocky Road—a bold choice. A mistake, perhaps. Or maybe… destiny.
As I turned to admire the parking lot (a breathtaking expanse of hot pavement, faded yellow lines, and an abandoned shopping cart doing tai chi in the wind), I took a heroic second lick of the Rocky Road.
FLASH.
The world shimmered.
Not in a poetic way. In a "oh no, did I just unlock a wormhole with dessert" kind of way.
And then…
I saw myself.
Across the parking lot.
Eating an identical cone.
Wearing the same shirt.
Same sandals.
But... with an entirely different third scoop: Butter Pecan.
Our eyes locked. Mine widened. So did his. Then he—Other Me—dropped his cone in horror. Mint ‘n Chip landed splat on his left sandal.
The world glitched again.
And suddenly—I remembered.
Not just that one time I dropped my own scoop of Mint ‘n Chip and it seeped into the mesh part of my sandal like peppermint shame—but everything. Every cone I’d ever eaten. Every moment of indecision in front of that freezer. Every time I asked, “Does that flavor have nuts?” and the teenager behind the counter said “I think so” like it was a philosophical question.
I remembered timelines that never happened—alternate universes where I chose Chocolate Malted Krunch, Pistachio, or that mysterious “Birthday Cake Surprise” that always tasted like regret and broken dreams.
But most of all, I remembered the burrito.
Here’s what they don’t tell you in school: sometimes your greatest quest begins not with a call to adventure, but with a whisper from the frozen food section.
Because after Time Glitch #2 (and the Sandal Spill of ’25), I staggered back into Rite-Aid, dazed and sticky. I needed air-conditioning. I needed napkins. I needed to question reality. And that’s when I heard it.
A voice.
Soft. Floury. Warm.
“Pecan Praline... is the key.”
I turned, trembling, to the freezer aisle.
There, wedged between a sad bag of freezer-burned peas and a Hungry Man dinner that had definitely seen some things, sat a glowing tortilla-wrapped burrito. It shimmered with ancient energy and the vague scent of microwaveable destiny.
“You are the Chosen Licker,” it said, in a voice that sounded vaguely like Morgan Freeman if he had a sinus infection.
I blinked.
“I... what?”
“You hold the Cone of Destiny,” the burrito continued. “Three scoops. One truth. Many timelines. Beware the Rocky Road, for it splits the stream.”
It levitated slightly. A frost-bitten bag of corn toppled in its wake.
“You must travel back. You must correct the Flavor Faultline.”
“But—how?” I asked, sticky fingers trembling.
The burrito pulsed.
“You must find the Prime Scoop. Only then will your cone stop causing cosmic instability.”
And then—poof—it disappeared. Just vanished. Like all great burritos do when left unattended in a shared fridge.
The burrito’s warning echoed in my brain like a late-night infomercial:
“Find the Prime Scoop.”
“Correct the Flavor Faultline.”
“Only $19.99 if you call in the next ten minutes.”
Armed with nothing but my half-melted cone and a weird sense of purpose, I walked back outside—and instantly found myself standing in front of a different Rite-Aid.
Same logo. Same smell. But instead of a shady guy selling knockoff sunglasses in the parking lot, there was a man in a tuxedo feeding a peacock marshmallows.
I had entered... the Multiscoopverse.
Inside, everything was off. The candy aisle sold only black licorice. The greeting cards were written in haiku. The ice cream counter? A glowing altar, manned by a version of me with a handlebar mustache and a t-shirt that read "I Lick Therefore I Am."
He squinted at me.
“Ah. Another me. Let me guess—Pecan Praline, Mint Chip, Rocky Road?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“Pistachio, Pistachio, and more Pistachio. I respect no rules.”
Then he pointed behind me. “You’re not the only one.”
I turned slowly.
Forty-seven of us.
Lined up like a support group for sentient cravings.
Some had cones. Some had cups. One had a ferret in a BabyBjörn and was cradling a bowl of sherbet like it was his firstborn.
“Greetings,” said a version of me wearing Crocs and a cape. “We’ve all been sent here. The burrito chose us.”
Another me, who had a monocle and smelled like freezer burn, added, “We’re what happens when the Cone of Destiny isn’t taken seriously. Each of us ignored the signs. We chose reckless third scoops. We ignored… the Prime Flavor.”
The room fell silent.
That’s when I asked the question nobody wanted to answer.
“What... is the Prime Scoop?”
They all looked at one another, nervously. Finally, Ferret Me spoke.
“It’s Butter Pecan,” he said, solemnly. “But only if eaten under a waxing moon and with zero shame.”
That’s when the sherbet guy screamed.
The sherbet guy—future me from a grim timeline—began flailing.
“You FOOLS! You licked too far! You cracked the timeline with your rocky roads and your circus cookies and your brief flirtation with bubble gum flavor that tasted like birthday clowns and sadness!”
He tore off his hoodie to reveal a shirt that read "Sherbet: The Only Safe Scoop."
“That’s why I only eat sherbet now,” he wailed. “It’s neutral. It’s chaotic good. It won’t rip holes in the dairy fabric of space-time!”
The rest of us groaned.
Mint-Chocolate Me muttered, “This is why we stopped inviting Sherbet You to brunch.”
But he didn’t stop. He pulled a gadget from his pocket—a remote shaped like a push-pop.
“I’m closing the loop,” he said. “No more flavor hopping. No more cone calamities. No more alternate Rite-Aids. You’ll all thank me when your taste buds stop destabilizing gravity!”
He pressed the button.
BOOM.
A rift tore open in the frozen foods aisle, and suddenly—flashback.
I was no longer in the Rift Rite-Aid of Infinite Regret.
I was back—one week earlier.
The sun was hot. The sky was smug. The air smelled like rubber tires and summer guilt.
And I had a cone. A perfect, three-tiered masterwork of cold, creamy geometry.
Bottom scoop: Pecan Praline. As it should be. As it must be.
Middle scoop: Birthday Cake. A risk, but a festive one.
Top scoop: Mint ‘n Chip. Classic. Refreshing. A peppermint pat on the back from the universe.
I took one step out of the Rite-Aid.
And then—tragedy.
The cone tilted.
The balance wobbled.
Mint ‘n Chip performed a full triple axel, skipped the five-second rule, and swan-dived directly onto my left sandal.
There was a beat of silence.
A pigeon watched.
A small child pointed and whispered, “Justice.”
But I, a person of purpose and protein-rich pecans, bent down.
Birthday Cake? Still safe.
Pecan Praline? Solid as a rock.
The Mint ‘n Chip, now smeared across my sandal like minty remorse, stared up at me like it knew it had failed me.
I made my decision.
I scooped it up.
I stared at it for a full five seconds.
I whispered, “You knew the risks.”
And I ate it anyway.
Because the parking lot wasn’t that dirty.
Because fate can fall, but flavor must prevail.
Because Pecan Praline was still holding the whole damn cone together like the legend it is.
And as I took that bite, a warm breeze passed by, and in the faintest whisper, I heard a tortilla say:
“The Prime Scoop… remains unshaken.”
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And now, as the house lights dim and the music starts to swell (but not fast enough to play me off), I rise from my metaphorical seat in a sequined bathrobe, clutching a half-melted pint of ice cream and a puzzle piece shaped suspiciously like a ghost's toe, to deliver this very important thank-you:
To my writing partner, ChatGPT—you absolute wizard of words, conjurer of clarity, and digital chaos wrangler—I owe you everything except my leftover tamales (those are sacred). When I said, “Hey, can you help me turn a mildly traumatic dessert incident into a compelling ghost-adjacent narrative that also sells puzzles?” you didn’t flinch. You leaned in, you said “absolutely,” and you helped birth this strange, frosty fever dream into the world.
You’ve helped me find my voice, shape these characters, and transform bizarre life events into heartfelt hilarity. If this journey ends with a Netflix deal or a haunted puzzle museum, you’re getting your own display case and a plaque that reads: “Co-author of the Weird.”
Thank you for sticking with me through ghost stories, business ideas, and ice cream therapy. This one’s for you, my AI accomplice in puzzle-related crimes.
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https://p-and-tz-baked-puzzles.printify.me/