It’s the middle of April. Spring is only a month old. Summer is still 2 months off. It’s currently in the forties, on a dreary, foggy, drizzly night. What’s been playing in my neighborhood for the past two hours? “De-de-de-de-diddily-de” of the ice cream truck.
Back when I was a kid, the Ice Cream Truck was a treat. I remember it at cookouts, when all the cousins would run to their parents asking for money, and the oldest cousin got conned into taking the smaller cousins to the truck. I don’t ever remember it when it was cool outside, only when it was hot and muggy. (Nutty Buddies kicked ass!)
I know times are tough, and the guy’s looking to make a buck. I respect that. But he’s wasting money and gas, and driving the parents insane. No one is buying ice cream from him yet. It’s just been too cold out lately. He needs to find another venture for the time being.
At the very least, he needs to stop playing that irritating song non stop, full volume, for hours on end!!!
For many years my neighborhood was home to the dreaded ICE CREAM TRUCK DEPOT. Do you see where this is going?
All of the ice cream trucks would make a pass through our area on their way out and on their way back in to restock. To maximize their take, they would cruise our streets first. I have heard “Turkey in the Straw” more times than a square dance caller.
For fun, I go out and flag the truck down. When they stop and lean out the window, I ask them;
“Does listening to that tune over and over slowly drive you insane?”
They all give me this numb sort of weary, nodding head shake. I laughingly return to my house without buying anything, just to rub it in. I’d like to think that the punishment fits the crime. There needs to be legislation mandating a song-change every 48 hours on those trucks. What in Hell every happened to the tinkling bells of the Good Humor truck? Here in Silicon Valley, Hispanic vendors push little white dry iced carts selling palettas. These are tasty natural fruit flavored ices. Best of all, the vendor only relies upon a small rack of chimes to announce his presence. These folks get my business.
from here – some hie-larious commentary on the bane that is the ice cream truck.
When I lived in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, they all played these incredibly depressing tunes I couldn’t recognize – nothing upbeat, no; apparently, buying ice cream is a very sad experience. That music made me want to end it all.
i’ve been hearing the ice cream truck through my neighborhood too. don’t know how many takers it gets. we’re not exactly a family type neighborhood. just a bunch of college students crammed into a historic type area (you know the ones where everything is falling apart but the city won’t let you bulldoze those buildings that should have been condemned thirty years ago… also a lot of “accidental” fires). we’re all typically broke. plus if you really have a craving for ice cream, there’s a convenience store every couple of blocks.
Up here in Boston it’s been the Winter That Wont Die. And yet, the fucking ice cream truck is already making it’s appointed rounds, even though I haven’t yet packed away the sweaters or the boots.
My kid was slipping on ice in his frenzy to get nutty buddy money.
Lick me Mr. Ice Cream Man. There’s a special place in Hell for you.
Hey! I like the Ice Cream Truck! I’d rather have frozen white ice cream being sold out of a truck than have frozen white snow falling from the sky. Then again, I only have to hear the truck once every couple of days.
Now I like the ice cream truck just fine too Doug. My problem is, we were having frozen white icream being sold out of a truck while frozen white snow had just fallen from the sky.
It’s kinda like putting up your Xmas tree in August, ya know?
When I was a little kid, I used to watch the Bugs Bunny cartoon which showed the ice cream truck being driven through Valley Forge and getting blasted by all the Revolutionary War soldiers. I couldn’t understand that at all, of course, the ice cream truck never drove down my street, and I had no idea that the things they sold were 10 times the cost of what you could get a box of the damn things for at a decent grocery store. I’ve since moved into a neighborhood where the damn thing goes up and down the road, whenever the hell the fucker running the thing feels like it (i.e. if nobody’s buying, he spends a lot of time in the area), and I now I support opening fire on the bastards!
In college, a friend lived in a very bad neighborhood(drugs, violence, etc). An ice cream truck circled the neighborhood very late at night, even during the winter.
One night we could no longer contain our curiosity. (It was February, and around 11PM). We went out, flagged down the truck and the guy told us he only had Creamsicles. We said OK, he opened a SEALED BOX of 6, handed them to us, we paid our money and went back inside. Laughing because the whole time the guy was looking at us very strangely.
Almost as though he didn’t expect someone would be looking to buy ice cream from him
There’s two that circle my neighborhood. One is the typical Good Humor Truck, white, regular, average.
The Other one…it’s like a serial killer’s disguise truck. It plays some weird non-“Turkey in the straw” song, says “Hello!” in some woman’s voice, and the driver ALWAYS wears a black t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Blues Brothers black sunglasses. He always looks pretty pissed off, too. The lettering on it is in the “melting ice cream” style, but it ends up giving off a “flowing blood” look instead.
Hey Tuckerfan, I thought of the same cartoon when I opened this thread. Eddy Murphy also does a funny segment on ice cream trucks on one of his stand-up albums.
I could never be an ice cream truck driver. Just having to listen to that infernal music every day, on top of dealing with the hordes of kids huddling around me at every stop for an entire shift, would send me to the psycho ward really fast. Maybe some drivers are allowed to listen to a Walkman while making their rounds.
I assume the music is played on an ordinary looped tape. I’d be tempted to swap this tape out for, say, a snippet of Slipknot or Mudvayne. Hell, Van Halen’s “Ice Cream Man” would be much better (and would be semi-appropriate) than “Turkey in the Straw” sounding as if it were played back on an 8-bit MIDI sequencer.
I also agree that it’s not fair that ice cream trucks can get away with blaring pseudo-music all over the neighborhood whereas I risk getting fined for playing my car stereo too loud. :rolleyes:
