Is this topic mundane? Yes. Is it only frusterating for 10 minutes a day? Yeah. Sure to elicit some juvenile “tough shit, hippie” post from CalifBoomer? You know it! Fortunately none of these things concern me very much so I’m going to post it anyway.
I’d like to know why the kid down the street can get busted for cranking up his rap music but the ice cream man can drive around blaring a repulsive MIDI-esque version of B-I-N-G-O at 160 decibels with impunity as I try to sleep. (I work at night and sleep during the day.)
Also, I wonder how the ice cream man keeps from going nuts with all that B-I-N-G-O.
`They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety’
Lets hear it for daysleepers! How early in the day is the ice-cream truck driving by?
Have you tried actually filing a noise complaint with the local noise-enforcement agency?
I wake around 3:45P - can’t help it because I live in a apt. complex and that when loud children start playing loud basketball right outside my window. This is a temporary apt. in the complex while our normal unit is being remodeled so I can live with it for now.
I think you should find out the company name and call them up and give them a piece of your mind. Insensitive bastards!
Hell, in my old apartment, I would be wide awake when the warbling, nerve-racking notes from that hellish monstrosity known as the Ice Cream Truck would echo from the next street over, its foul melody ripping through the fabric of an otherwise peaceful afternoon. The sickeningly high pitched, nauseatingly repetitious tune which, in happier, quieter times I would have recognized as “Pop Goes the Weasel”, got louder and louder as that satanic purveyor of cheaply constructed frozen products cut its swath of irritation throughout the neighborhood.
It creeps closer and closer, the maddening song drowning out all rational thought. Curse the man behind the wheel, curse the children who purchase the frostbitten wares, curse the parents who toss change to their dirty, flea-bitten offspring, curse the demon spawn who first wrote that insipid little ditty, curse the bastard who recorded it on a three dollar toy piano, curse the sonofabitch who invented the first amplified loudspeaker system, and the motherfucker that first decided to attach giant blaring horns to the top of his ice cream devil-wagon, curse the manufacturers of all ice-cream and frozen fruit bar products, curse the assholes who drive them in refrigerated trucks from the factories to the distributors, and the retailers who sell them to the evil fuckwads that drive these little carts around my neighborhood driving me insane!
popgoestheweasel la-la-la-la-la-la-la popgoestheweasel… oh die, you sons of bitches, die, all of you… make it stop! make it stop!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!*
On a side note: Perhaps it is a Florida thing, but I knew of at least two “ice cream” vendors who were also the neighborhood drug dealers. One guy had the balls to run his route at 10 - 11 pm every night.
If I have to choose between your right to get a well-deserved day of sleep, and my chance to get an ice-cold Bomb Pop…up yours! Go get a job during the day like normal people, ya freak.
Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
Are you kidding? I have an 11 year old son, and when I go shopping, I’m supposed to shop responsibly. When that truck comes by, and I’m buying Colin that twin-pop, I feel it only right that I share in the experience with him, thus bonding a father-son relationship even further.
Anybody buying this b.s.?
Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
slythe, I buy your story. You can never bond too strongly with your children.
Did you ice cream truck hating people never buy from one when you were children? Even if you did not, why would you want to deprive a child (or an adult) of the opportunity? You wanna sleep days, build a sound proof room.
Ha! I’m not a day sleeper… my neighborhood’s ice cream truck comes around between 8:30pm and 9:00pm every damn night once the temperature claws its way above 50 degrees. It’s so loud I can’t hear my television, and sometimes people I’m on the phone with will ask “What the hell is that noise?!”
I have nothing against the trucks and the kids who enjoy the ice cream… but for the love of God, turn it down.
Gamera is really neat, he is full of turtle meat, we’ve been eating Gam-er-aaaa…
There was one Ice Cream Truck in my old neighborhood that didn’t play music. It had what I always pictured as a giant bicycle bell inside of it that would just BRIING-BRINNNNNG-BRIIIINNNNGGG. I would take Pop Goes The Weasel over that any day. I also had the misfortune of having a fire hydrant directly in front of my house, and Mr Ice Cream Man would park himself there and ring that damn bell for what seemed like hours in the summertime. Bastard.
Rose
Ya know, not only the noise thing, but the damn prices are pretty high (relatively). Before moving out here to boring 'ol Omaha, I lived on the SW side. Lemme tell ya, I liked all those Mexican push cart flavored (ice or milk) things. I always went for the milk ones (they used to be 60 cents, maybe 75 now), but those damn things were good. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, yummy. Come to think of it, we don’t have ice cream trucks here in Omaha…
At least I know I can sleep during the day if I ever got the overnight shift.
**Teamwork:**When you do all the work, and your co-workers get the credit.
**Irony:**The light at the end of the tunnel is actually a pair of headlights.
First off, hats off to ReservoirDog, for the funniest rant I’ve ever read on the boards. Beautiful man.
I’m looking on the net now for an old story about a guy who got sued by local folks over his ice cream truck which blasted “Turkey in the Straw” constantly while he drove around. It was a few years ago, so I don’t know if I’ll find it.
Zette
“If I had to live your life, I’d be begging to have someone pop out both my eyes. Just in case I came across a mirror.” - android209 (in the Pit) Zettecity
Voted “Most Empathetic”- can you believe that?
I was an ice cream truck driver. Long hours, low pay. I don’t remember what little tune my truck played, but it was along the lines of po goes the weasel or [camptown races*. I think it was a music box with an amplifier. There wasn’t any volume control that I remember. The speaker is outside the truck, facing forward, so it’s not as loud for the driver as you might think. Still, it was always there, not just ten minutes a day.
If you don’t like it, talk to your city council. Where I was, I had to have a permit from the City.
Oh, and ReservoirDog? You’re welcome! Evil fuckwad indeed!
It was in New Jersey that this occured a couple of years ago. At http://www.telecottage.com/icecream/ you can read the whole story of the ban on electronic, amplified music and it’s subsequent overturning.
Sorry, Commander - it looks like relief is not really in sight. Look at it this way - even if the ice cream truck didn’t wake you up, your insensitive idiot friends probably call & wake you up all of the time anyway…
Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
– Emo Phillips
