When the ice cream man dies.

The other night, I had a meltdown. It was an ugly meltdown, full of "What the Fucks?" and "Jesus God Damn Christs" and all the while my daughter called out, helpfully, from the other room, "Uh....That's a junk word Mommy!"

She was right. Her mother was screaming filthy obscenities and it was wrong of her to do that. More than likely she'll never go to college because she has a mother who can not control her filthy mouth. She'll probably swear in front of her own children and someday I'll have filthy mouthed grandchildren and I'll hate myself for the legacy I've left behind.

I did apologize, but that God Damn Ice Cream Truck Has Been In Front of Our House For 18 Minutes and Counting And I'm Losing My Fucking Mind!

I wish I could describe the mind numbing, repetitive, tin like sound of the Ice Cream Man's song. I think it's this but when I listen to it that sounds almost pleasant and the music from this Ice Cream Man's truck is not pleasant at all. In fact, I would say it's incredibly unpleasant.

I heard it in the basement as I did laundry. Then I heard it in my bedroom as I folded laundry. Then I still heard it as I started cooking dinner. I thought it would be leaving. Soon. It's got to be almost finished up now. How much ice cream can someone buy? It can't possibly stay here any longer.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT STUPID FUCKING TRUCK! Please, my GOD, PLEASE...leave! Just LEAVE!

I talk about 'Creative Flourish' here and I wish this was creatively flourished. I actually started to cry when we hit the 28 minute mark of the Ice Cream Man Blaring His Music In Front Of My House.

I stood in the dining room window actually crying and willing the truck to 'Please, just move' But it wouldn't. It sat there, mocking me.

I wanted to kill the ice cream man and I love the ice cream man. I love everything he represents.

The excitement of kids getting treats!

Hot summer days in a wading pool!

Pavlovian training of children to run frantically in front of a moving vehicle so they might get ice cream.

Frivolous wasting of money! I love to waste money. I've been doing it quite well for about 20 years now. I mean you could buy twice the ice cream from the grocery store for the same price you pay for one little ice cream treat from the ice cream man....but where's the fun in that? Hello?

But no.

That night I had such a fragile hold on my self...the music of the truck drove me to swear and cry and have a temper tantrum that had even Max saying, "Get a hold of yourself lady."

I marched outside to the truck at the 31 minute mark and through tears I said, "My God PLEASE, PLEASE leave! Can you please turn that music off if you're going to sit here? What is wrong with you? Why are you doing this to me? Do you have any idea how I barely hold myself together on a day to day basis and now you're sitting in front of my house and playing that GOD DAMN MUSIC! What have I done to you to make you hate me this much? Please, please stop!"

Do you know what he said?

"Oh, sorry!"

He flipped a switch and made the maddening music stop. That was that. It was like he wasn't trying to make me insane, like he just didn't realize his music might be making a totally unstable suburban housewife insane.

This concludes Episode One in my series titled: "Maybe I Should Consider Chemical Help?"

Watch for more riveting evidence of Zoloft's never ending place in my life.

Comments

[AGK]

Wow! See, now our ice cream man speeds through the neighborhood like he's UPS, except he has nothing to deliver, because who can possible catch him. We just hear a fast smear of sound, and the kids say, "Mo...never mind...again!" Maybe we're just not good enough for his business.

[Angela]

So funny. And SO Amityville! I hate to admit this, but when you marched outside to confront the ice cream man, I was *really* hoping for a fight. You know, just a good old fashioned frozen ass kickin'.

[Heather]

The ice cream truck in our neighborhood plays "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf", which we think is the creepiest song ever to play to a strange truck selling candy/ice cream to kids.

[Shaunacat]

I had to laugh, I just had to. I think it's because the ice cream man drives through our neighborhood at about 5mph, blaring some stupid song that makes me want to cry too. And we don't even have kids. No one on my street does, because they are all 80 years old or older. (Except for us in our 20s) And our guy doesn't just drive down our street once, but he circles the block like 5 times...just to make sure the crazies in their wheelchairs don't want some fucking ice cream or something.

[Nicole]

I think we have the same ice-cream man. I had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday (same song and all), except that it happened at 9 PM, which I seriously think is a little late for ice-cream on a Sunday. However, I do have to admit that my parents' have the scariest ice cream man EVER. My parents' neighborhood is tiny (I think there a total of 20 houses) and it's in hickville, so the street is pretty empty. We never got the ice cream man to come when we were little, but he's started to these past several years. However, instead of playing a song, he has this recording of a bell tolling once. Only it's a really, really bad recording and sounds very mechanical. It sounds more like the mechanized man of death coming than the ice cream man. My family hides when we hear him coming...

[AnneWhitney]

I soooo sympathize with you -- I'm usually just teetering on the edge - the oddest thing will just push me right over - my husband threatens to medicate me on a daily basis.

[receptionista]

oh, fuck that shit about not swearing in front of your kids. so your kids might swear a little, it's not going to fucking kill them. besides, everyone in my family sounds like a goddamn sailor, and my sisters first words were a garbled version of "son of a bitch." don't you know little kids that swear are the cutest assholes EVER?! it's a proud legacy you leave your family with! trust me.

[emily]

I feel your pain.We live smack dab in the middle of a fairly large neighborhood,so we get to listen to that stupid music for freaking hours while he goes all over the neighborhood.I just wonder how in the hell he listens to it for hours?I need the meds he is on!

[lauren]

Get this...our ice cream man sells liquor! We just moved to this neighborhood and we were talking to some neighbors about how strange it is that the ice cream man drives through well after kids' bedtimes. They said that's when his "other customers" come out. We are dying to go up to his truck and see if there are little pictures of margartitas, bloody marys, and different kinds of beer along side the bomb pops and chocolate eclair bars. I wonder how long 'til our little ice cream/liquor man gets busted.

[Katy]

See, I hear that music and I think "cool, it's time to load up on crack!" Because that's what it means in our neighborhood.

I think it's very brave of you to confront him. I would have called 911 and made a noise ordination complaint. I'm passive like that.

[Melissa]

Lauren: THAT IS A WONDERFUL DREAM COME TRUE!

Katy: It wasn't bravery....I was crying too hard to actually call the police. (Also, I didn't really yell or anything...I just said, 'Would you mind turning that music off if you're going to be parked here?"......"I embellish because I love")

Nicole: We have a guy with that wierd bell thing. He's a knife sharpener. What? When we first moved in here and I was pregnant and that bell kept chiming and I couldn't figure out from where, add pregnancy hormones....weeeeeeee!

[alice]

I feel that that level of rage is totally appropriate to the situation. There was a news item a year or two ago--somewhere in NY, a man assaulted an ice-cream guy with a baseball bat because he had parked in front of his house for some ungodly amount of time. And I distinctly recall from that article that it is in fact illegal (or at least definitely against the ice-cream man oath) to stay on one block for more than whatever allotted amount of time.

I love that you said something--I definitely would have stayed in my house and done something productive, like developed a back spasm. The other day I heard, for 45 straight minutes, a woman crying out, over and over, "Ola! Ola! O-laaaa! O-laaa!" and I thought I was going to go insane. I couldn't leave to go outside and beat her senseless, as my son was sleeping; in fact, I couldn't even see her from my window. That afternoon, I saw signs for a lost cockatiel named GUESS WHO? I almost called to berate her, but I figured I should have, you know, sympathy for her loss, or whatever. Even though I COULDN'T WORK. Because she was driving me INSANE.

[jilbur]

O how I love thee. My adoration knows no bounds.

But on a more practical note:
I guess you now don't need this tip, since you've found that merely weeping at the asshat driver is an effective way of curbing his obnoxious mu-Sick. But if for some reason that isn't practical: fans are *great*, cheap white noise-makers for 'most any situation.

Also, you would probably really enjoy Ron Sexsmith's song, From a Few Streets Over, about an evil icecream man, cursed by parents, because he lurks around the poor neighborhoods where they can't afford to give the kids money for icecream. The arrangement has a tinky-tink sinister icecream truck sounds. Very satisfying!
Ours used to play 'Turkey In The Straw.'
xoxox

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Ed Note: Oh My God!!!!!!! I can't believe I've never covered the LOUDNESS that is my neighborhood. Oh, I'll cover it. I sleep with a fan on in my room and have for 5 or 6 years now just to block out the noise in this stupid neighborhood. Oh, you just wait. You won't BE-LEEEVE what I deal with here.

[pinky]

1) you have fireflies now? Why did I leave, then?

2) have you ever seen one of these thingys?

http://www.toolsforwellness.com/63041.html

Seriously, it keeps me sane. I keep it on 24/7, although that's probably why the first one died after several years, choked on the inside by a thick fur of dust. Not that it will overcome every noise, but I couldn't sleep without it.

[Julia]

You rock. Quietly.

[jenn]

And yet another reason to move to Indpls...a few years ago the city made it ILLEGAL for the Ice Cream Idiot to play that awful tinny music. Public Nuisance or some such thing.

[aurora]

we don't have ice cream trucks. we have those guys on ice cream bikes with bells on the handlebars. they suck, too. although, i couldn't imagine having one of those dudes sitting outside my house, jingling his goddamn bells for an hour.
what i really can't believe is that your dude acted like he didn't notice that he'd left the music on. how can anyone not notice? i mean, those things are designed to attract notice. good grief.

[Joolie]

My dad used to say that if that sonofabitch ice cream man drove by ONE MORE TIME he'd shoot the ice cream man's speaker off his truck so he'd never dare to come around again. My dad didn't even have a gun, but I cried anyway. I was kind of a stupid little kid.

[claire]

in case you're worried... my mom has the most unbelievably vulgar vocabulary, and my brother and i, now ages 24 and 21, have pretty squeaky-clean speech patterns. i think we rebelled by becoming more polite...

[Jeff]

I AM an ice cream truck driver, and these comments are unfair. We are not all the same, and, people, please lighten up. Some of us drivers don't overcharge, we sell only ice cream, and we teach your kids about manners and conducting themselves well in public. We also teach them how to interact with adults in a positive way. We are an asset to society, a public service spreading joy everywhere. Please don't make us out to be creepy and just out to annoy others. And the person who wrote this article (or whatever that was), if you used that kind of garbage mouth in front of my window, I would refuse to do business with you. This is what I have done in the past, and it doesn't matter what age the filthy-language user may be. You need professional help with your anger.