Pop Hits

You might be reading on the couch. Or playing catch in the backyard. Or riding your bike up and down the block. Or mowing the lawn. Or any number of other summer pastimes, none of which has anything to do with school.

Then, faintly, you hear something. A trick of the ear or perhaps a full-on auditory hallucination. You stop whatever you are doing and listen hard. Focused. Is it? Could it be? The faint tinkling gets a little louder. It’s verification. The tune becomes more distinct. It might be a block away. Two at the most.

It’s ‘The Entertainer,’ originally composed by Scott Joplin as a piano rag in 1902. But you don’t know that. All you know it as is the ice cream truck song. It is blaring tinnily through the speaker mounted on the top of the truck. And it’s growing louder, heading your way.

You break from your trance. You realize you were straining so hard to listen that you forgot to move. But move you must. Get scrambling. Time is running out. It’s getting very loud now. It’s on your block. Where did you hide your allowance? Your piggybank? You check in the couch cushions for lost coins. You beg whatever parent is home for a dollar or two. Please, please, please? Can I? No matter what, you find some money any way you can and then run faster than lightning. Seriously, get a move on. If you don't hurry you'll miss it.

You fling open the front door and bound down the stairs. You see it now. The ice cream truck. It is glorious. The color of ice cold milk and cumulonimbus clouds. It shines like the snow capping Mt Rainer in the summer sun. It’s an ice cave on wheels. It’s an invention designed to convert childhood memories into hyperbole and dispense frozen dreamcapsules to paying devotees.

There’s the speaker on top that’s playing that sweet, sweet annoying jingle that will, decades from now, get stuck in your head when you least expect it. Maybe it’s stuck there now. It’s broken record nostalgia making you pine for the innocence of youth.

The truck is driving slow, but also way too fast.

There are other kids out there. Streaming from their houses like rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You want to be first. What if they run out of your favorite? What is your favorite? It’s so hard to decide.

The driver/ice cream vendor spies the congregation of easy marks and pulls over to the curb. A lineup of questionable integrity ensues. On this side of the truck is the concession window, below which is plastered the eye-catchingly uncomplicated menu of available options. A veritable treasure trove of perennial favorites, along with newly devised novelties to vie for your attention. You jockey for position with your friends turned newfound foes.

The vendor hands out requests and takes the money from those in front of you. You haven’t made up your mind yet. What shall it be? The menu, with all its glossy primary colors, pops with so many choices. You could get classic ice cream or chocolate chip cookie sandwiches, peanut covered Drumsticks or crunchy King Cones. There’s the Bubble Play, a baseball mitt with a gumball in its palm, or a soccer ball shaped ice cream called Goal!. You could go for a patriotic; red, white and blue Rocket pop; its flavors of lemon, cherry and berry mixing into one sweet tart firework for your tastebuds. There’s also yogurt push-pops, orange creamsicles, choco tacos and ice creams shaped like your favorite cartoon characters. Do you get one you know you like? Or do you take the risk and go for something new and intriguing? It’s a gamble. Possibly your first moment of FOMO. In the end you make your choice and hand over your money. The vendor shoos you out of the way, ready for the next in line.

You take your purchase and gather with your friends. You admire one another’s shrewd decision making in the face of such relentless advertising and you share your regrets for not having chosen what the others now wield. If you’re lucky, one of your companions will share a bite with you in the hopes that you return the favor. Ha! Not likely.

You tear off the wrapper or pop open the top and bite right in to whatever awaits. The flavor bursts forth and envelopes you. For an instant there is nothing else in the world except you and that first impression of flavor. Is it you or the frozen treat that is melting? You lose sense of time and space. The sweet or the tart or the gooey or the chocolatey takes over. Banana, lemon, butterscotch and strawberry or bubblegum, fruit punch, pineapple and tutti frutti. It’s the only thing that matters. You savor every last bite, drop and morsel. It’s a race to make sure more of it ends up in your mouth than on your hands, or worse, the ground. And then it is gone. You stand there wishing you could conjure up one more or someone would generously buy another round or the vendor would start tossing free ice cream from the interior of the truck like some sort of benevolent freezer god.

In the end the ice cream truck departs. It trundles to the end of the block and rounds the corner and disappears out of your life. Its song carries on for a minute or two, fading farther and farther out of earshot. 'The Entertainer' becomes just your former entertainment. You are left with the stained popsicle stick of your erstwhile indulgence. You chew on it in a desperate attempt to eke out a little bit more flavor, but all you taste is stale, splintered wood. Even this taste you will remember fondly in years to come.

You blink and look around. Everyone is headed back to their homes in a satisfied stupor. The moment has been met. Summer will continue. Maybe the truck will be back tomorrow. Maybe it is the last time this summer you have seen it. Who knows? All you can do is go back to what you were doing, like it was all a dream or, undoubtedly, a fleeting instance of gratification well worth the pause.