Credit: CNN Newsource

This is what ice cream does to people.

Ice cream makes people crazy, and I can say that with confidence. I used to work closing shifts at a grocery store, and every night, and I mean every night, there would always be at least one person who absolutely had to come running in at the last minute and keep everyone from going home. And what was the emergency purchase they absolutely had to make? Ice cream. It was always ice cream. People go insane for ice cream, and they will shirk any societal rule or norm to get it. Don’t believe me? Look what happened to this poor guy.

Polar Cave Ice Cream Parlour, a small ice cream shop in Mashpee, Massachusetts, attempted to reopen on Friday after shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The owner of the business, Mark Lawrence, wanted to wait until it was safe, and decided the Friday before Mother’s Day would be a good shot. His staff was limited due to shutdowns, so to alleviate their burden, he requested customers call ahead to place orders.

Not only did almost nobody call ahead, the store was almost immediately swarmed with customers demanding ice cream. According to Lawrence, the customers who came were extremely verbally abusive to him and his staff; while he did not divulge the exact words used, he told Boston 25 News that it was the kind of language “you wouldn’t even say in a men’s locker room.”

Credit: Fox News

After the surge died down, Lawrence re-closed the shop. Due to the harassment she endured, one of Lawrence’s employees, “one of the most hardworking, kindhearted,” in his words, quit on the spot. As this employee is only 17 and was working to save for college, Lawrence opened a GoFundMe page to aid her. Lawrence took to the store’s Facebook page to lament his employees’ terrible treatment, and pondered leaving the store closed indefinitely.

When he received some support from more conscientious locals, Lawrence decided to try opening the store again on Sunday, where things thankfully went a little more smoothly. Lawrence hopes that his customers can be respectful while the store tries to figure out how to run business in a partially open manner. “We’re not claiming that we know what we’re doing. We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re giving it a shot,” he said.