A Sweet & Sticky Summer Starter

Ah...the sweet sounds of summer. No, not the sound of waves at my feet or children splashing in a pool...not the sound of kids playing in the yard...

It's the sound of the ice cream truck coming down the street.

(WARNING! Personal soap box moment coming)...And it's playing "Turkey in the Straw." Really? Does every ice cream truck in the nation buy their soundtrack from the same music box on steroids? I'll give it one thing...you can be inside, at the back of the house, and hear him coming from two blocks away. There's no mistaking that sound...or the one that follows it: "MOOOOOMMMMM! The ice cream man is coming. PUH-LEEZE???" Hand it to those ice cream guys--they really know how to snag a child's attention.


Luckily, we live at the end of a long cul-de-sac so we can hear him coming and then we can capture him at our end of the road as he turns around...or we can chase him down the street if we didn't hear him coming fast enough.

We've heard him this year, but I've been too Grinchy to give in to $2 ice creams when I have a freezer full of perfectly good and tasty freezer pops, 100 for $3.99, thank you very much. But with Rebekah home on school intersession this week, a treat was in order. So the picture to the left was the scene two afternoons ago.

I had dragged her all over creation that day, so when she asked if she could buy an ice cream that afternoon, I felt a special treat was most definitely in order.

So she pulled up a chair and waited patiently for the ice cream truck. And waited. And waited. And for those of you who know Rebekah, this was a feat. But she picked a cushy chair.














When I finally complained that we were cooling the outside too (after taking several priceless photos, mind you), she moved her vigil outside.

But guess what? Our street wasn't on the agenda that day. Sad, sad Rebekah.

So today, she and some friends were playing with the hose in the backyard, and they heard their favorite summer tune...yep, the tinkling sounds of "Turkey in the Straw" wafting on the gentle breeze. They came screaming through the back door, Rebekah yelling at me to grab my money, all of them trying feverishly to unlock the front door...but their hands were covered in leftover sunscreen goo and the doorknob quickly became too slippery to open. I thought Rebekah was going to have a heart attack. After wiping the residue off the knob, Lindsay and I barely got the door open before they exploded out the front door. Of course, by now the truck was headed back up the street. Barefoot and dressed in swimming suits, they blazed up the road. I grabbed my wallet--and my change jar since I didn't have much cash, and we chased him up the road. I think he must have seen our little parade coming in his rear view mirror because he pulled over near the end of the street.

Probably scared the little guy to death. But I'll bet he's used to it.
Mission accomplished. A round of treats for the little squirts, and order was restored. I wish I'd had my camera to capture the chase scene. But I did get it in time to record the smiles and sticky faces of some of the successful hunters.

Ahh, the first expensive, pink and blue, bubble-gum flavored ice cream of the season.

Welcome, summer!













Parting question: Would someone please tell me why "Turkey in the Straw" is the American Idol winner of ice cream truck karoke machines? If you have a decent answer for this, I'll send you a buck to buy your own bubble-gum flavored concoction. Drippy popsicle stick included.