the Ninja Creami will solve all of my problems and also make me sexier
one purchase away from self-actualization!!!
I, lifelong lover of ice cream, smoothie bowls, and unnecessary gimmicks, was mesmerized by the Ninja Creami as soon as my TikTok algorithm fed it to me.
This magic device, according to the Pilates-toned women and Mr. Beast-esque gym bros who stood between it and their cell phone cameras, could do the impossible. Decadent, Ben & Jerry’s 's-style ice cream for under 200 calories. Per pint.
Eat a whole pint every night!! Make a smoothie bowl every morning! Happiness lives between the bowl-and-spoon you start your day with and the straight-out-of-the-pint scoop you have before bed.
If you’re not yet convinced, it’s because you aren’t seeing what I’ve seen:
Scene: a kitchen, clean and nondescript. There is probably a vase of flowers nearby. Enter stage left, ME. Tanner than normal (even though I live in Scandinavia), maybe slightly taller (lol), and visibly toned. I am in a workout set that matches. I am actually just on my way to Pilates, which I can both afford and attend regularly, but before I go, I am having a delicious and filling smoothie bowl. It’s quick and easy–I just grab the frozen pint of ingredients that has been thawing on the counter for the last ten minutes (I am the type of person who neither forgets to take things out to thaw and who also never forgets that I already took something out and completely lost track of it, causing them to melt into useless mush) and spin in my Ninja Creami™️. After the first spin, I add a little extra of whatever alt. milk is the most virtuous right now (rice?) and respin before grabbing healthy little toppings to add. Cue, text on screen: NINJA CREAMI™️ – it makes you sexier!
My partner and I are in the middle of a move right now, which has involved moving all of her things to the new apartment (via Uber, because we can’t afford a moving van), moving all my stuff from Norway (via bus, because we absolutely can’t afford an international moving van), and, once our boxes of clothes and books and instruments and trinkets have successfully been piled into the same relative place, furnishing the empty apartment. Brutal.
The worst part of the move has not been unloading and reloading XL suitcases into a slurry of less-than-enthusiastic drivers’ SUVs, or the eight-hour bus ride I’ve taken three times this month (soon to be six!). It hasn’t been hitting 10,000 steps in IKEA or coping with the fact that the person you live with thinks the plates belong in a different place than where you would put them.
The worst, most insufferable part of this move is that I fully cannot buy a glorified ice cream maker (around 2,000SEK/roughly $200) when we still don’t have a dining table.
I, a patient and admirable sufferer, had resigned to accept that I couldn’t reasonably buy this, even though I’ve wanted it foreverrrrrrr (since June) and it would make me reaaaaaallllyyyyy happyyyy and also probably change my life forever.
And then! A gift from the universe!!
Sitting on the couch (OUR couch! We bought it and it’s ours and we love it!!!), Sol on the phone with her mother, I am on Facebook marketplace.
And there it is! Brand new, in the box, secondhand Ninja Creami at a reasonable discount!
My blessing from the universe is being presented to me via a profile with no photo, no post history, and a name we can’t link to anyone with any sort of online presence. The marketplace post has only one picture, and it’s an imperfectly cropped screenshot.
Incredible! I message immediately.
The angel, deliverance of my earthly needs, takes an additional 200SEK off the asking price. Sol begins to caution me that this could be a scam or a stolen good and has asked me to ask a few more follow up questions. But I have already opened a second tab on my laptop: Pinterest, NINJA CREAMI RECIPES EASY. He sends us the address (farther than I’d hoped) and we begin to negotiate a time.
Tonite?
Actually, tonight isn’t great for me–I just showered. But I can do tomorrow morning or
evening! If you absolutely can’t do tomorrow, we can make something work.But you can make tonight work?
I look at Sol, pre-loading the apology she’s about to get.
Sure.
Great. 9:30pm.
So we are on a bus, having pulled cash from the ATM, and then we are walking for 12 minutes in a neighborhood I’ve never been to before. The streetlights are on, and several Swedes shamelessly stare us down as we walk past. Sol is holding my keys between her clenched fist, just in case.
The Facebook marketplace guy is already messaging us at 9:22pm:
Are u here yet?
We are not, so I don’t answer–a trick he cleverly plays back on me again when we actually do arrive. We stand in the parking lot of an apartment complex, waiting longer than we hoped, accumulating bug bites. But finally–good things come to those who wait impatiently!–he emerges.
This man looks nothing like his Facebook profile picture of a dark gray silhouette against a light gray backdrop. Instead, he looks somewhat friendly. He asks if we don’t speak Swedish, which we confirm. And then he asks if we speak Spanish–one of us does.
“Yo hablo español también, un poco,” he says to Sol. He looks back at me, massive Ninja Creami box in his hands. “Ella no habla español?”
“I don’t,” I tell him, unsure if that’s a requirement to complete this transaction. Just in case it is, I hand him the cash quickly before he can change his mind. “Thank you so much!”
It is now almost 10pm, and the bus stop is an inconvenient enough walk to warrant an Uber. The first one arrives with literal lights and disco balls–thrilling! Life is so full of whimsy!!!! And then, cruelly, the app crashes–the driver can’t get the ride to start, and asks us to please leave. This is actually the first time I’ve been kicked from a party, so I feel a bit defeated when I have to slump back out onto the sidewalk.
The second driver has no disco balls, no lights, and no radio–this is fine, too. When we get home, I am still Christmas-morning level excited to unbox my prize.
The box and all of its instructions are in German/French, solidifying the earlier “are we purchasing something that someone stole?” theory. Nevertheless! It’s here, all of its parts are included, and the only thing standing between me and the life of my dreams is freezing some yogurt and frozen berries overnight. The New Me begins with tomorrow’s breakfast experience.
Tomorrow (which, if you’re reading this, is now today!) comes. I did not transform into the New Ninja Creami version of myself Cinderella-style, which is disappointing, but I think we can all agree that it is probably something that will develop soon.
Instead, I walked into my kitchen in my Costco sweatpants and a cropped t-shirt from Goodwill. I take the pint from the freezer, let it thaw for an indeterminate amount of time, and then wrestle it into the surprisingly stubborn machine slot. The buttons light up–this is a good sign!!! There is a button for smoothie bowls, but since this is my machine now and I don’t have to obey the laws of the buttons, I click ice cream.
This thing sounds like an airplane taking off. It is so, so loud.
It is 9am, and I am sure that I am making a Really Good Impression on my new neighbors. But after I check the post-spin consistency, I decide that 9am is a reasonable time for noise today, and I respin it, covering my ears.
It tastes okay. Admittedly, our fridge and pantry is understocked, so neither the base or the toppings are the way that I would normally do it.
But still–it’s my morning smoothie bowl. I open my window, grab a coffee, and sit on the new couch with the book I’m reading. Later, I will look up the nearest pilates studio (Jesus Christ, memberships are expensive!), check to see if Sol has slept through the loudest specialty blender ever produced (she has–what a talent!), and contemplate the merits of logging into Microsoft Teams for the day.
Good things come to those who wait, but they also come to those who are willing to buy possibly-stolen goods off of questionable strangers from Facebook marketplace :)