Phil Elmore
Master of Arts
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2002
- Messages
- 1,514
- Reaction score
- 54
Ah, that sound. It is the sound of a calliope being beaten into submission with a large wooden mallet. It is the sound of rushing to your mother and clawing at her for a dollar while jumping up and down frantic to race outside without your sneakers, horrified at the thought of missing the Pied Piper of frozen confections. It is the sound that speaks to your soul no matter how old you are, telling you to rush outside waving your arms as if you've got a bug on you.
It is the ice cream truck.
Granted, through the years there have been some changes. While attending a friend's college graduation party, myself "just out of University," I bought one of the aforementioned "frozen confections" from a passing ice cream truck in the park. I remember the ice cream actually qualifying as ice cream when I was a kid. These days your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Face on a Stick is labeled a "frozen confection" in much the same way fast food milk shakes are simply called "shakes." These subtle linguistic manipulations signify that your dessert contains absolutely nothing that was ever squeezed, milked, plucked, raised, or harvested in or from any natural source whatsoever.
My childhood memories of ice cream trucks do not include convicted felons serving the ice cream, either. As an adult I am firmly convinced that every ice cream truck driver I now encounter is a convicted serial killer with a penchant for sprinkling prostitutes crammed into oil drums about the deserts of Nevada, an illegal immigrant, a paroled child molester, a grifter, or some combination of all of the preceding.
I muttered under my breath to my wife as I returned from yet another defeat at the hands and wheels of the wily ice cream truck driver, who has taken to taunting me by driving close to our house without ever actually driving down our street. My wife reminded me that we could go to the store and buy as much ice cream as we wanted -- but of course that defeats the purpose, the primal instinct, to hunt and gather ice cream the way our ancestors stalked woolly mammoths.
Instinct is instinct, and progress is progress. Sometimes the two conflict, however. Given the choice between uncooked, hairy elephant and a "frozen confection" in the shape of Spongebob Squarepants' face, I am not sure which I would choose.
It is the ice cream truck.
Granted, through the years there have been some changes. While attending a friend's college graduation party, myself "just out of University," I bought one of the aforementioned "frozen confections" from a passing ice cream truck in the park. I remember the ice cream actually qualifying as ice cream when I was a kid. These days your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Face on a Stick is labeled a "frozen confection" in much the same way fast food milk shakes are simply called "shakes." These subtle linguistic manipulations signify that your dessert contains absolutely nothing that was ever squeezed, milked, plucked, raised, or harvested in or from any natural source whatsoever.
My childhood memories of ice cream trucks do not include convicted felons serving the ice cream, either. As an adult I am firmly convinced that every ice cream truck driver I now encounter is a convicted serial killer with a penchant for sprinkling prostitutes crammed into oil drums about the deserts of Nevada, an illegal immigrant, a paroled child molester, a grifter, or some combination of all of the preceding.
I muttered under my breath to my wife as I returned from yet another defeat at the hands and wheels of the wily ice cream truck driver, who has taken to taunting me by driving close to our house without ever actually driving down our street. My wife reminded me that we could go to the store and buy as much ice cream as we wanted -- but of course that defeats the purpose, the primal instinct, to hunt and gather ice cream the way our ancestors stalked woolly mammoths.
Instinct is instinct, and progress is progress. Sometimes the two conflict, however. Given the choice between uncooked, hairy elephant and a "frozen confection" in the shape of Spongebob Squarepants' face, I am not sure which I would choose.
