It’s 6am and I’m sitting here staring at the blinking cursor wondering what to write about. Bizarre as it may seem I was just lying in bed thinking about the Ice Cream Guy (ICG) and how my view of him has changed over the years.
Must be because I heard him driving through the neighborhood last night.
It used to amaze my mother that I could never seem to hear her pleas for me to take out the garbage but could somehow hear the ICG’s dulcet tones three or four towns away. (A talent my youngest daughter seems to have inherited)
It was creepy, actually, in a Stepford Wives kind of way.
These days the rusty truck that drives through our neighborhood goes excruciatingly slow while playing a severely out of tune version of Frank Mill’s “Music Box Dancer” with a heavy dose of total harmonic distortion thrown in for good measure.
God, I hate that song.
I think it’s just the company’s subliminal and overtly wicked way of increasing business. The crazed demonic music stops when the truck stops, get it?
Clever, huh?
E-V-I-L. That’s what that is.
Every time I hear that stupid song it makes me want to get out an AK-47 and blow the damn speaker right off the roof of the rusted-out tin can on wheels. (Oh, but what would the kids in the neighborhood think?)
Yup, I’m getting old.
The ICG’s that I see these days are nothing like the grandfatherly Norman Rockwell types of my youth.
The company seems to have traded in Dick Van Dyke for the likes of a Goth version of Tommy Lee. I guess I just don’t like a guy sporting an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt with a Black Widow spider tattoo on his face fondling my Nutty Buddies.
Sorry, pal, put my ice cream cone on the counter and step away.
And no, I have little interest in trying the new Frozen Haggis in a cup, thank you very much. Eeewww.
Sadly, the childhood innocence found in eating a frozen confection on a hot summer day has been replaced by a disturbing social scenario you’d be more likely to find smack dab in the middle of a Stephen King novel.
Not a total loss, I guess—if you like King (which I do).
Sherlock is now proceeding to consume a plant in the living room Godzilla-style . . . his subtle way of telling me he’s a bit hungry.
And God knows I need another cup of Java…
~m
Smoke & Mirrors 
Good morning Michael and thanks for the reminder that we never had ice cream trucks that came around where I grew up…… no, if you wanted an ice cream and your mother didn’t have any in the tiny freezer , which was likely (in Europe you don’t have these huge boxes) you’d have to walk (if big enough) to the village center and get one from the store. Or wait (and wait, and wait, and —– Mu-uuuuuummmm?) until Mum finally decided to go shopping.
Seriously, I do have fond memories of ice cream trucks though as whenever we visited England, they would have them there…… Flake 99, a vanilla soft ice with a Cadbury chocolate flake in it. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and have a wonderful rest of the weekend. Spaz
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LMHO So you don’t want this ice cream guy fondling your nutty buddies
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a-pop had his girls convinced that when they played the music it was to let all the boys and girls know they’d run out of ice cream!! and it worked until one day it stopped right near their place and they saw other kids getting ice cream..he was busted bad!!!
and i lost my morning cuppa at the “fondling my nutty buddies” crack btw…will i never learn???
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You crack me up.
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I think it is the untainted view of life that children have unless they have overtly biased parents. Reminds me of a comment my friend made in front of his son while watching Ghost Busters. My friend said something about “the black guy” in the movie. His son said….’what black guy?” I love the inability to see color that children often have.
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Hi! Michael.
You guy’s are too much! You can turn icecream into body parts….’nutty-buddies’ indeed!’ All kids have selective hearing….when it comes to homework, chores, etc…but just yell ‘pizza..or icecream…..or free money! and they are faster than lightening!
I’ve heard of ice-cream trucks..as a kid they didn’t come into my area of the city too often. I do remember ice trucks vaguely.( where they dumped a block of ice)…and vegetable trucks. My mother would run out and get a bunch of carrots and lettuce or turnips & potato’s. I also remember the ‘rag man’ coming by. He would buy your rags or 2nd hand clothes by the bag., for so much a lb. And I do remember the milk man. Oh yes, and the guy who sharpened your scissors and knives. I do remember that. Just amazing what I remember now that you mentionned the ice cream guy.
Your posts always bring back old memories..some good, some bad!
By the way….I’ve read all Stephen King’s books..but what is it about clowns that freak us out?
Maybe Gacey? It seems every adult I have ever talked to…has said they can’t stand clowns.
If I met a clown coming home one dark night,,,,,,,,yes, I would cross the street and run like hell.
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Aw the ICG, I remember him well. Rockwell is right. Little bells ringing and the whine of that little truck always set my heart to the pitter-pat mode. Today, the ICG looks more like the local drug dealer or the guy who sells fruit on the corner during the week – take your pick. Also, the origins of said ice cream is questionable. I get my ice cream from the sanitary and non threatening cold case at my local grocery store now. Good post, Mikey.
WC
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Every time I see one of those trucks go by I think about the Cheech and Chong movie where they are selling dope out of an ice cream truck. Then I get the munchies.
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