We reside in a lovely little town just a stone's gentle toss from Big Town. We have lovely cookie cutter homes, birds singing in the trees, lovely landscaping - a veritable set from Desperate Housewives. Even the postal person isn't really postal. So why is it that at the same time every day down these lovely streets rumbles a lurching, hulking, lumbering, grey mass of rusted metal? Playing a tune that sounds like, as my son calls it, the 'song of a deranged clown.' In Eee-minor.
A remarkably iconic symbol of suburban youth now resembles the creepy, convoluted villain from a Steven King novel. "The Ice Cream Man Cometh" should be a joyful moment, not a lurking Willy Loser-man.
When did the Good Humor man go so bad? Is it now cool to buy popsicles from someone who looks like they haven't been near soap since the Carter Administration? Not that the old-school guy was perfect. Today, a guy who wears shiny white shoes, hangs out with children and smiles excessively usually ends up on parole and living in a cheap hotel. But at least there was some semblance of clean.
Perhaps part of the allure is the semblance of risk, of daring to ingest something off the poster vehicle for Hepatitis A. Look, ma, no handsoap. All the old fashioned scary stuff- running with scissors, playing in traffic, etc. is passe. Time to up the ante on the antibiotics.
Yeesh.
4 comments:
Annie, you may already have heard me tell this but when my daughters were young they wanted to know why that funny truck drove around playing music. We told them that it was the Music Truck and it went around sharing music. What can we say? We did not want to have to deal with the musically induced gimme-whines that the truck was created to produce.
Several years later when my kids were about 10 and 7 (respectively) a couple of the neighborhood kids were over playing. They heard the off-tune tinkly notes of the "Music Truck" and the other kids rushed home to get money. Our kids were dumb-founded. They still gripe about it years later.
scottmgs - Well, they call it 'Good Humor' for a reason - might as well be music. But this truck is so creepy that my kids got over the ice cream idea pretty quick. Something about not taking candy from strangers. Go figure.
Josie the dog is another story. She heard me call it the 'ice cream truck' and figured it out pretty quick. So every time it goes by, she flips out. If I don't buy her some then she heads for the fridge, demanding ice cream from the freezer as a consolation prize.
that's it! this guy has an ice-cream headache!-insomniac
insom - that's one of my faves. The whole painting looks like soft serve ice cream. It's up on my office wall. When people comment about its creep-factor, I say 'how do you know he's not screaming for joy?'
Which means fewer visitors, so more time to write. :o
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