How to Eat an Ice-Cream Cone

Welcome to my all-inclusive guide on how to eat an ice-cream cone.  We are going to assume that the cone itself is normal (not a waffle cone) and the ice-cream is soft-serve.  There are a total of 6 stages, each with many steps.

Stage 1: Preparation

1. If you were not given a napkin, get one immediately, and wrap it around the bottom "handle" of the cone.
2. Lick any pressing drips off the sides of the cone.
3. Be aware of your surrounds, and find a nice place to sit/stand.

Stage 2: Ice-Cream Top

1. Eat the ice-cream off the top in any manner you choose.  It's hard to do this incorrectly.
2. Make sure no rogue ice-cream drips make it down the side of the cone.

Stage 3: Transition

1. Once the level of ice cream is even with the top of the cone, continue licking ice-cream out from the middle without eating the cone itself.
2. Once it is uncomfortable to eat anymore with the cone still fully intact, eat the very top edge of the cone all the way around.

Stage 4: Handle

1. Eat ice cream out of the middle.
2. Eat the exposed top of the cone all the way around.
3. Repeat Stage 4 Steps 1 & 2 until you are left with about one inch left above the base.

Stage 5: Base Preparation

1. Use your tongue to compress the remaining ice-cream into the base of the cone (the honeycomb-like shapes in the bottom).
2. Once it is compacted, eat the remaining part of the cone until just the base (full of ice-cream) remains.

Stage 6: Base

1. At this point you should be left with a small, cylindrical base of an ice cream cone.
2. Eat the entire base at once.  Trust me; it's wonderful.