While I don't have the same Proustian association with Dairy Queen® and happiness and childhood that the easily excited blogosphere does, I've still ventured to the first store to open in Manhattan on its opening day. I was in the neighborhood for other things and whatever. The Dairy Queen® menu with the calorie counts, indicating that the Reese's® Cups™ Blizzard® Frozen Treat™ would push past 700, did not deter me from ordering a Reese's® Cups™ Blizzard® Frozen Treat™.
I waited for 15 minutes in line, then stood near the registers for another 15 minutes after ordering, before someone came out to match tray #36 to me, customer #36, with my little reusable #36 placard in hand. On her arrival, the runner theatrically presented the Blizzard® upside down, verifying its legendary viscosity, then flipped it right side up for the part of the ceremony where I finally accepted and beheld the coveted object.
We went to a Dairy Queen® on occasion as a family, but the more frequent destination for us was the North Hills Tastee Freeze on Route 19. The nice thing about that place is their Blizzard® equivalent, brilliantly called a Freezee I think, could be made with chocolate soft serve, not just vanilla. Dairy Queen doesn't do that. Few places do, I've discovered. Chocolate soft serve with mangled Reese's® Cups™ was the greatest ice cream related thing I had ever known when I was younger. Now that I think about it, and despite all the artisinal and pedigreed cacao-flavored ice cream I've had, I'm not sure I've encountered any better frozen treat since I grew up.
So what am I doing here, eating this thing?