No ice cream for you

My husband wants to buy an ice cream truck. When I say that he wants to buy one, I don't mean he mentioned it in passing. I mean that he's been looking on Craigslist and eBay at ice cream trucks for sale. He stopped the ice cream lady that comes through our neighborhood to ask her questions about where to get inventory. He even found one for rent and called the owner to find out how much and what the terms were.

He's serious about wanting an ice cream truck.

It occurred to me that he works a full time job during daylight hours, when most ice cream truck business would be taking place. The next time he called me over to look at a "really cool one" on the computer, I cornered him.

"So, sweetie, are you planning on quitting your job or what?"

"Why would I quit my job?"

"To drive the ice cream truck that you are so set on buying."

That was met with a moment of silence. With my husband, silence means one of two things - either I've stunned him and he's speechless, or he's taking a moment to try and figure out how to tell me something. In this case, it was the latter.

"Well, honeysweetiepumpkin, I thought maybe you would like to drive it. Look, it's pink."

Of course. Why didn't I think of that myself? It's always been my dream to drive in circles for hours on end, selling ice cream to sweaty kids with handfuls of pennies.

"What in the name of Blue Bunny would make you think I want to drive an ice cream truck?"

He looked thoughtful. "Ice cream trucks are cool. They play fun music."

Oh, no. I hadn't considered the music. You think It's a Small World is bad twice in a row, try hanging out near the ice cream truck for an hour. There's one that used to drive through a neighboring town that had a unique soundtrack. It played "La Cucaracha" loudly, over and over. In case you're not fluent in ice-cream-truckish, that means "the cockroach." Appetizing, eh?

I told him I would make a terrible ice cream lady, and it's true. Every kid that came up and asked "how much," then turned away with a sad face after looking at a sweaty quarter would get free ice cream from me. I'm a sucker for kids. I also told him that until gas prices fall below "WTF" level, that it's just not economically smart to drive in circles all day to try to sell $1.50 ice cream bars. My final argument was that we couldn't afford the Xanax prescription that I would need to not go bonkers listening to a tinkling version of "How Much is That Doggy in the Window" all damn day.

He's still shopping around for an ice cream truck. He can keep right on looking. When he finds one and buys it, I'll load the kids up in it, paint a tiny mustache on my upper lip, and make myself a nametag that says, "The Ice Cream Nazi," then I'll terrorize the neighborhood. It'll be fun.