There must be, in parts of Mobile, people whose everyday routines don’t require them to drive their children and/or grandchildren through the intersection of Florida Street and Old Shell Road. What blissful lives those must be.

For once a young mind has learned what lies inside the distinctive yellow building on the corner, it’s all over. The geographic center of the world has been established. From that point on, all roads lead to Old Dutch. Or, at least, there’s a persistent and oft-vocalized hope that any road might lead to Old Dutch, either on the way to the real destination or after. Heaven forbid one try to quietly drive past it; that yellow paint is too noticeable, watchful young eyes are too keen.

It is, certainly, a landmark. Edwin Widemire opened Widemire’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe in a former gas station in 1969; Cammie Wayne, who’d worked there as a teenager, bought it in 1998 and changed the name to Cammie’s Old Dutch. In 2011 she and her husband, Larry, began making all the shop’s ice cream locally, a pivotal development in what we have today: An ice-cream shop that feels like an old-time soda fountain, with a creative, ever-changing lineup of fresh flavors. It’s regularly ranked among the best ice cream parlors in the city and the state.

The usual drill is this: Find a parking place (which might be across the street). Enter and take stock of the bustle of activity behind the counter. Sidle to your left, squeezing past the line of people waiting along the display case. Incoming patrons thread their way clockwise around the perimeter until they reach the back of the line, then start moving back the other way until it’s their turn. Usually it’s for a scoop or two or in a cup or cone. Whether you get a regular cone or a waffle cone, it’s going to come with all the ice cream it can hold, and in hot weather you’re going to have to work fast to avoid a meltdown.

That’s the normal routine, and it’s fine. But sometimes you’ve got to go the whole hog.

Sooner or later, you owe it to yourself to try the banana split. And by “try,” I mean, “enter into mortal combat with a dessert item that will delight you, but may also well humble you.”

That was the goal on a recent day, and I brought a six-year-old research assistant with me to share a sundae. This plan went off the rails before we entered the store. There was a sign on the door saying that with egg nog ice cream in stock, egg nog milkshakes were on offer. OK, fine: One sundae to share, one egg nog shake.

Next problem: My assistant changed the terms of the deal. The banana split was all hers, even if it was as big as her head.

This promised to be interesting. I’ve had the split before and it is a lot: The traditional Old Timer starts with a whole banana and three very large, very rich scoops of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, blanketed in all the toppings you can expect. It’s not big enough to be a gimmick, like a three-pound burger, but it’s big enough to guarantee that you will have to slow down and think things over somewhere during the process. Which makes it an unexpectedly meditative experience. It gives you plenty of time to ponder the old-school décor, such as the sign that says “Stressed spelled backwards is desserts” and the display of a limited edition Christmas tree ornament depicting the shop.

You have time to watch an old-school ice cream shop operate, the way old-school ice cream shops have operated as long as there have been such things. This was quite a cold day, by Mobile standards, but the trickle of new customers never stopped. The staff was never idle.

My companion allowed me to have a few bites of sundae, but only from the vanilla section, her least favorite flavor. And it was fine. I had problems of my own. The shake came in a tall glass, and the rest of the shake – all that wouldn’t fit in the glass – came along with it, in a tall metal measuring cup. It was really, really good and man, was there a lot of it. I honestly don’t want to know how many calories it added up to, but I assume it was enough of them to keep me alive for several days.

Eventually, we came to an end. My helper hadn’t exactly finished the sundae, but she had certainly beaten it into submission. All that remained was a layer of Neapolitan soup and most of a banana.

In her defense, she argued that she’d already eaten one banana that day. But I was in no position to point fingers: While transferring shake from the mixing cup to the serving glass I spilled about half a pint of it, mostly on my phone, and I still couldn’t finish what was left.

It’s not just about getting something sweet. It’s about knowing your limits, and making peace with them. And it’s about pondering some of the deep philosophical questions in life.

Questions like whether “No, it’s too cold out” is ever a legitimate answer to the question, “Can we go to Old Dutch?”

No. It is not a legitimate answer to the question. It is not too cold to go to Old Dutch. And if you’re going, you might as well go big.

Cammie’s Old Dutch is at 2511 Old Shell Road, with a creamery at 4380 Halls Mill Road. For hours, menus and other information, visit cammiesolddutch.com.