Scary ice cream trucks

On the way home from work the other day, I was behind an ice cream truck. I was taken aback at the sight of it, because it looked like the idyllic, old fashioned ice cream trucks from my own childhood. In fact, I was so happy to see an ice cream truck that looked like an actual ice cream truck that I was tempted to follow it, motion for him to pull over, and buy a frozen treat with change from my ash tray. Just to support him, if nothing else.

Let me explain. When I was a kid, I remember the ice cream truck that came through our neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina (yes, I know I was age 0-3 in Charlotte, but I swear I remember!) The truck was huge, blocky, white. It played a tinkling little ice-cream-truck music that you could hear from around the block. And when we heard it, we'd run inside and ask my parents for some change (back then a little spare change could actually buy a Popsicle). Sometimes they'd give us some change, sometimes they wouldn't. Occasionally we wouldn't make it back out to the truck in time before it was gone, but when we did, that ice cream was the best treat since...well, it was good enough that I recall the whole experience 30 years later.

Flash forward to modern times. Ice cream "trucks" have gotten downright gross. First of all, they are almost never trucks at all, but converted vans. They usually play some kind of cloyingly childish music, but it's canned and insincere. Usually one side of the van is covered with tacky stickers advertising what they sell and how much it is. And even worse, they're stuck up there haphazardly, in varying states of dog-earedness, peeling and dirty looking. And I don't know why, but every one of these types of ice cream vans I've seen, from Florida to Arizona, have those tacky stick-on letters on the front doors, the kind of letters you buy at Wal-Mart to put your name on your mailbox, that say (again, always crooked) Ice Cream. Although there's usually a letter or two missing.

I want to run from these abominations. I want my children to be protected from things like this. They are the frozen dessert versions of the creepy old guy in the trench coat, whom you don't trust, who hangs out near the park. I've never bought an ice cream from these ramshackle ice cream truck wannabes and I never will.

But that truck I was behind coming home from work? His sign, large and professional looking, said "Popsicle Pete." I purposefully remembered it because I wanted to look him up on the Internet. I want to call him and ask why I haven't seen him on Sunland Ave. and when will he plan on driving through. I haven't done it yet, but I will. I think I'll google Pete right now.