"I've changed my mind," I heard Lucille say. "I'd rather have sprinkles than nuts."

Her husband plopped the sundae in front of her. "If you change your order, everyone else's order gets messed up. You ordered nuts, you eat nuts."

She skated the bowl back at him. "I don't want nuts."

"There's no keeping you happy, is there? Too damn bad. Nuts is what you're getting." He shoved it back in her direction.

"Excuse me?" she snapped. "I don't remember anyone making you emperor. Does someone else want my nuts?"

"I'm kind of a cherry man myself," said Dick Teig.

"Me too," Dick Stolee added quickly.

I suspected both Dicks preferred nuts over cherries but were too homophobic to admit it.

"Jane?" Lucille implored.

Jane shook her head. "I'm allergic to nuts."

"So's Lucille," said her husband. "At least my nuts. She didn't seem to have a problem with Andy's though."

Gasps all around the table. "That was uncalled for," said Helen.

Lucille propelled the sundae back at Dick. "I wouldn't eat that now if you paid me, you miserable lowlife."

"Two-timer."

"Skinflint."

"Slut."

I watched the sundae shoot back and forth between them and wondered what was going to break out first: a fistfight or a food fight.

Lucille shot out of her chair, causing it to crash backward onto the floor. "Slut? How dare you!" She picked up the dish of ice cream. She glared at her husband. Okay. My money was on the food fight. Dick Stolee reached for his camcorder.

"Press one button on that camcorder, and I'll break your arm," Grace threatened. She got to her feet to join Lucille. "It's bad enough Dick Rassmuson has to air his dirty laundry in public, but you're not going to encourage him by getting it on tape!"

"The hell you say," said Dick, who whipped the camera up to his eye and aimed it at his wife. "No one's going to tell me what I can or can't record. This is Grace under pressure. Boy, she looks like she's gonna blow."

Grace picked up her coffee cup and fired the contents at the camcorder. "Grace!" screamed her husband as he sloughed coffee off his face. "You idiot! If you've ruined my camera, I'm going to be so pissed! Napkins. I need napkins!"

"Why don't you use your toupee?" said Lucille. "It's the closest thing to a mop around here."

Grace gave Lucille a high five. Helen and Jane stood up in a show of force. "I saw a pharmacy a few doors down," said Jane to the ladies. "I recommend we wander over and check out the prices."

Lucille dropped her dish of ice cream back onto the table. "I don't know who you think you're going to sit with on the trip back to Lucerne," she spat at her husband, "but it's not going to be me. Come on, girls."

"Don't flatter yourself!" Dick Rassmuson raved, as the women huffed away from the table. "I'd rather walk back to Lucerne than sit on the bus beside you!"