Potholes. Speed bumps. Caution ripples. (You know, the ones motorcycles use.) All are obstacles on your trip from A to C. To us, however, they are all in a day’s work. Cone Alone has been doing our best to keep you safe on this journey of life. You’ve seen us all year, but you haven’t heard from us.

It was a time without orange friends. It was a time without introspection. It was a time without puns.

It was The Year Without Cone Alone.

Well, we’re back!

Orange* you glad we returned? Did you miss us? If you did, we’d love to hear from you.

Take a minute and send us a photograph of a Cone Alone that represents how you felt during The Year Without Cone Alone (TYWCA**). You can submit your photos in three ways:

• Email your photo to josephpatrickrichards@gmail.com
• Post your photo to The Cone Alone Facebook page
• Tweet your photo to Cone Alone

You don’t have to include a caption, but please be sure to include your name and city of residence (for you or the Cone Alone).

We’ll post your photos over the next couple of weeks in preparation for what we’re calling The Return of Cone Alone (no abbreviation necessary)!

That’s right, we are set to return with all new Cone Alone posts (including ones submitted from our friends, a.k.a. Cone Aloners) every Wednesday starting June 26. Send in your photos and mark your calendars.

And don’t think we forgot about last summer’s holiday photo Conetest. And the winner is…

Jane M. of Utah with the picture of a Cone Alone collapsed in on itself. (Did it recoil at something?)

The winning photo from Jane M!

Congratulations Jane! For submitting the winning Cone Alone photo, you will receive a Cone Alone t-shirt (just like the one sported by Cone Aloner @yarnsmithee)! Just email josephpatrickrichards@gmail.com with your t-shirt size and we’ll start production right away.

Before we get back into it, we wish to take a minute and thank everyone who begged and pleaded for our return. It means so much that you all care about our stories or, at the very least, like looking at conical emotional wrecks.

And don’t worry: we’re just as lonely as we were one year ago.

With a pessimistic outlook toward the future, we are Cone Alone!

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*We recognize not all Cone Alone are orange. We hear you. We just can’t say yellow to everyone. Can’t we just agreen to disagree?

**Not to be confused with The Young Women’s Christian Association nor The Yiddish Welcoming Committee of Amherst.