Ice Cream Memories

You know that it's officially summer around these parts when the Jack & Jill ice cream truck's melody taunts you. In my neighborhood, one never really actually sees the truck since he just does a once around down the main strip. As a child I always attributed it towards laziness - now I know better.

He just hated children. An interesting paradox - one that I'm not even going to try to psychoanalyze.

Anyways, all of us kids would run towards the end of our block as soon as we heard the melody blaring out of a dinged and dirty speaker atop his truck. We would desperately race to the corner, hoping that we could beat him there - because if he moved faster than us, we could say goodbye to the popsicles that we had begged our mothers for money for.

He was interesting. A man of indeterminable origin, he had skin the color of a latte and I'm not entirely sure I've ever heard him speak - other than to shout at us in an unintelligible grunt for money.

We would grin up at him - his face hidden by a scraggly beard - and rip the plastic coverings off our goodies. I loved the feel of the plastic. Weird, I know, but I delight in the small things. The way the plastic crunched in my hands, the way the popsicle would melt in the summer heat - I loved it all.

He'd roll his eyes, move to the front of his truck, and squeal out of there as if the devil were after him, while all of us neighborhood kids ran down to our mothers to show them what prizes we had acquired.

I kind of miss those days, as I sit here with my low-fat sugar-free taste-free popsicle. Life was simple then. I only hope that one day life might be that simple for my kids.

Y'know. If I ever get around to having any poop machines minions children.