Ice Cream Man Cometh

Like a lot of people, I took advantage of the fact that the 4th of July fell smack in the middle of the week to spend a couple of days down at the shore. While I was down there I had a couple run-ins with that oldest of beach traditions, the ice cream truck. You know, given the way people are about safety these days you would have expected that by now some member of the PC police would have put a stop to the practice of kids getting treats from a stranger's van. Despite that, the business not only continues but they look to be to thriving. At one point the kids near me knew the van would be arriving and started begging their parents for money before it even pulled into the parking lot, then formed a line where they knew the van was going to be. Clearly, that business is a gold mine. As a bonus I don't even think it takes that much training to operate, because these days no one actually makes ice cream cones from these vans. All the treats come prepackaged and sold as-is. While it is obviously more sanitary to not have a total stranger touching your ice cream, it removes some level of skill. On top of that, it doesn't even seem as though they need to learn any new items, because there aren't any.

Seriously ask yourself: when was the last time anyone updated the menu to the ice cream truck? Since I was a kid it has been the same few standard items: the red, white and blue popsicle in the shape of a rocket, ice cream sandwiches, some variation of a Drumstick cone, sports bars and fudgsicles. That's it. That's been the list since I was a kid. Sure, occasionally you'll get some new ice cream that's in the shape of the most popular cartoon character or superhero, but they had better be sure that cartoon is going to stay popular because once that item is on the menu it is there to stay. The one item I saw which inspired this post was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ice cream. When was the last time there was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon, movie, comic or game which was popular enough to warrant getting its own candy? I sincerely believe they started making these thing in 1994 and just never bothered to take the sticker off the side of the van. For all I know they keep them around for people like me, who see them and want to have one out of some sense of nostalgia.

The other thing which hasn't changed since I was a kid is the song the ice cream truck plays, but at least that makes sense. Everyone knows what the "Ice Cream Truck" song is. When you have a catchy jingle you don't change it, regardless of what business you are in. For some reason advertising jingles seem to get stuck in our brains and refuse to budge. People who can't remember their children's birthdays can sing some ad they haven't heard since they were nine word for word. (Perfect example: I don't even like bologna and yet I know it has a first name.) That's the power of music. And let me tell you, these kids on the beach must have had the hearing of a bat, because their heads perked up the second they heard the first note. Seriously, Pavlov's dog didn't have shit on these children. The only person I feel bad for are the people driving the truck because that is the only song they ever hear, all day long. I'm sure by the end of the day they never want to hear it again and yet have this impending sense of dread, knowing it is waiting for them as soon as they start the truck up the next morning.

The belief in the restaurant business is that you always should be changing things up. You keep the most popular dishes the same to keep the regulars happy, but if you don't adjust the rest of your line-up customers are just going to get bored. So, while I get why the music has stayed the same, even well-established restaurants like McDonald's adds new items occasionally. Somehow the ice cream truck has stayed immune from this practice. I'm not saying that I want them to start making giant and elaborate ice cream sundaes (we are still talking about something you will be eating at the beach, where sticky and sandy don't exactly go hand-in-hand), I just think they would be well-served to replace a couple of the older items with something fresh and new. Also, they need to do something with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because I don't know if the kids today even get that reference and even the dorkiest of dorks my age will have a hard time ordering a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ice cream treat with a straight face. At some point even nerds have their pride.