Either way, it was fun to watch the kids stare at the board of choices with a glazed-over look of hope in their eyes. That ice cream menu held all the promise of America, like choosing a certain kind of ice cream could change your life or send you down a certain path. Buy a Chocolate Malt cup and you will some day be good at talking to women. Get a Tornado Twister cup, on the other hand, and you'll have great luck on the stock market. Choose something, anything, and, if only for a moment, you'll feel happy. But then again, maybe that's why some kids just turned and ran away. Maybe they knew, deep down inside, that it was a sham -- that the bars were produced in some factory in Cincinnati or Milwaukee or wherever. Or maybe they just couldn't weasel the cash away from their parents.

As the summer passed, I got better at being an ice cream man. I became proficient at adding prices in my head. I knew almost every inventory item by name, and didn't have to waste time searching through the cooler. It was still strange, though, when kids would order specific bars by name. They'd yell, "I want a Cosmo bar!" I had no idea what they meant, since that name wasn't on my yellow inventory sheet. A parent had to clarify that it was from a Nickelodeon show called The Fairly Odd Parents. I personally had excluded television from my life, and I had forgotten that most kids were still totally brainwashed. What I really wanted to know was, what the hell happened to the Hulk Hogan bar?

I could often predict what a specific person would buy. Anyone over the age of 50 was likely to choose a Drumstick cone, that being one of the only selections that existed when they were young. Most boys between eight and 11 years old wanted a Tear Jerker Bomb Pop. I remember liking sour candy as a child too, but I have no idea why. Now I think it's one of the first real examples of masochism in the human individual.

I grew accustomed to being alone all the time. And that took a while, even though I enjoy time by myself and often get lost in my mind while with others. Eventually "The Entertainer" not only didn't annoy me, but I barely even noticed the music at all. I started to develop favorite paths for each square mile of land. I divided the subdivisions based on when they were the most crowded. I really could have used the Census survey results, in order to map out the whole route by how many kids lived in each area. But except for the unbearable heat and the low pay, I didn't really mind the job all that much. Every time I drove down a street, I had no idea who would pop out of a house to greet me. Driving through an upscale neighborhood of two story houses one afternoon, a sexy young mother came out holding a baby.

"Hi there. Could I have a Cookies and Cream cup?"

"Of course," I responded with a grin. I couldn't help but wonder, was this a single mother, or was her husband actually away at work for the day? What if I had offered her help around the house, and then, once the baby fell asleep for the afternoon nap, I seduced her? Would anyone have noticed the yellow truck parked in a suburban driveway for an hour or two? Maybe, I thought, I should have taken that a step further and started running a call service using the ice cream sales for a cover-up. Mark would have flipped his shit over that.

My feeling of inadequacy over not initiating this plan was lessened a week or two later, when, later in the evening, the wife and the husband bought some ice cream together. I'd rid myself of these thoughts and move along, focusing on whatever might come next. On one unpleasant occasion, I sold ice cream to a young girl and boy, and then parked across the street to take a short break. I saw the two children separate and walk towards neighboring houses. A few minutes later, a woman approached the truck and knocked on my window.

"You charged my daughter too much," she complained.

I informed her that the girl and boy had both bought one ice cream bar, and I assured her that they were charged appropriately.

"She wasn't buying his ice cream."

"Well they ordered together," I responded, just figuring out what had happened. "Neither of them said anything about ordering separately."

"You owe us that money back," she said, ignoring my statement.

"Can't he just give it to you?" I pointed to the boy, who was still standing on his front lawn.

"We don't know him. You have to get the money from him."

She didn't know him??? She lived right next door!!! I wanted to sucker punch this bitch in the face. What if I hadn't stopped across the street, but had just driven off? Would she have called the company? I doubt it. And that little bastard, too! He walked up to the truck with no cash and let that girl buy for him without even asking. I should have shoved a popsicle in his ass to teach him a lesson.

Eventually we got the kid to run inside and get some cash, and I "refunded" this lady's money. I never went down that street again.

Perhaps my favorite customers were the ones I could count on day in and day out. A family of four around 18 Mile and Ryan came out very consistently, as long as I passed by around 7 pm. The strange thing is that they ranged from 12 to about 22 years of age, not any young kids, so they could have driven to a store and bought buckets of ice cream to keep in their freezer. I guess that's not as much fun though. These were some of my favorite buyers for another reason: an older daughter in the family who caught my eye. She was sort of a natural flirt, and probably didn't mean to give me the impression that she was attracted to me. In fact, most people probably assumed that I was at least a little weird, but that thought hardly ever crossed my mind. I knew I was normal, so they could probably see it too. Couldn't they?

I asked myself this question on various occasions. Driving down a street in a neighborhood very much like the one in which I grew up, a girl of about 17 or 18 years walked towards me. She was beautiful, with strawberry blonde hair. Coincidentally or otherwise, she ordered a Strawberry Shortcake bar. I couldn't help but wonder what the pink and white cream would look like as it melted over her bare, youthful skin. I wanted to know how it would taste, that smooth dairy on flesh. But she escaped with the dessert and nothing more, so I continued on.

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