I cannot believe there are still so many places where marijuana is illegal but ice cream trucks are given free reign to stalk, torment and endanger so many lives. Children and adults alike. I don’t know about you, but weed has only ever given me happy experiences. Sure, the occasional paranoia and hangover, but they have nothing on the daily headache caused by our neighborhood ice cream truck. My children have a sixth sense for that foreboding jingle – truly its akin to the pitch of sound that only dogs can hear. No matter what fun they are having my kids always have one ear listening for that truck full of treats (and tears and tantrums). Our ice cream truck – like many the world over – makes sure to park outside of school right at 3:15 the moment the weather turns even remotely warm enough to warrant frozen treats. This means that this particular thorn in my shoe is unavoidable. And even after making a family rule that we only get ice cream truck treats on Fridays, we are plagued by other friends and families with different rules and “better moms,” as my 5-year-old told me yesterday. Now that it’s warming up, I face an ice-cream-related tantrum by at least one of my children every day. Which is why I propose we band together to form MAICT (Mothers Against Ice Cream Trucks), a group of exhausted moms who believe collective action is the only true avenue to change…
Like so many Jews before me, I seem to struggle with an undiagnosed – but no less very real and difficult – case of lactose intolerance. But it is a very specific whipped-cream-and-ice-cream GI disorder. Unfortunately, I happen to love both treats, even more so because of their dangerous aura. There have been very few times in my life where I’ve turned down this delicacy because of the preordained trauma I would suffer. I am utterly baffled by those strong-willed souls who deprive themselves of some food or another because of how it makes them feel. This is some deferred gratification that I have yet to experience.
