I’m worried about them. Every afternoon about this time, an ice cream truck drives through my neighborhood. The tune it plays is arguably the most annoying tune ever conceived by the mind of man or woman. It only plays about 45 seconds of this tune, each phrase ending with the bark of a dog, the quack of a duck, or another idiotic sound. At the end there’s a pause of about five seconds, then a woman’s voice says brightly, “Hello!” (which causes my dog to race around barking at the intruder) and we’re off on another agonizing 45 seconds of tune.
How could a person keep their sanity listening to this hour after hour??? Does any one personally know an ice cream truck driver? Do they appear lucid? Is therapy part of their benefit plan?
It’s my opinion that we need to worry more about ice cream truck drivers than postal workers–and if they’re not going to shoot us, someone is surely going to shoot one of them!
I’ve wondered the same thing. The same ice cream truck that goes by you comes by me here in Wisconsin. The tune ours plays is “Turkey in the Straw”. That is maddening enough, but that “HELLO!” is totally annoying.
They are most likely not sane. But I’ve wondered the same thing about salepeople in certain mall stores–namely Hollister, Ruehl, Abercrombie–the sort of place where you trip over several clothing racks on your way in because the light is too dim to see them, to say nothing of the soundtrack, played at such driving decibels that anyone over the age of 25 who does not know to hang on is blown out of the store by the force of soundwaves.
What happens to people who work there?
It’s not a tune I recognize…just some dreadful electronic chime thingy with sound effects. I don’t know that the tune itself makes any difference, although I think this one was specifically written to coerce children into buying ice cream from strangers in big white vans. An evil tune that stays in your head for hours and hours…
It just came to me what the tune is and I’ve been laughing ever since I realized it: it’s an LDS hymn “O, Refresh Us!” Took awhile to recognize it because of the jaunty way they’re playing it, along with the animal sounds interspersed throughout. It’s probably some tune known by others as something else, but that’s what it is here.
In the UK, they tell me that some lunatic has just wangled through legislation that Ice-cream jingles must be no longer than fifteen seconds. I haven’t checked. that’s the figure I was told. There may be similar legislation in your state.
Its the piercing volume I object to, not the length of the jingle. It’s enough to turn you against ice-cream. But I know I’m in a minority on this one.
Our Turkey in the Straw ice cream man drives so fast down our street it’s a wonder the ice cream isn’t strewn all over the road whenever he blasts over one of the speed bumps.
I suspect the ice cream men making the most money are the ones I see pushing on foot a small cart that rings a simple bell. These are Latino guys selling traditional treats and what looks like it might be syrup for snow cones or something.
They don’t stop their trucks anywhere. They don’t sell any ice cream. They just drive around with that godawful “music” playing. Hiding in plain sight, if you ask me. What are they REALLY up to? It’s some kind of front. I’m sure of it.
