Mark always used to talk about how everything would be all right if he were an ice cream vendor. But I note a couple of flaws in his logic:
1. The Music. You have to listen to the most obnoxious sound on the face of the earth: Essentially a giant, really loud music box directly above your head, playing what I only know as the tune for Wakko’s America from Animaniacs. If it annoys the shit out of me for the five minutes a day the ice cream man stops at the park across the street for the kiddies, it’d make me homicidal if I had to hear it on a daily basis.
2. Chicago Weather. Our schitzoprhenic seasons have now switched back to winter after two days of summer. Three days ago I had my windows open and was only sleeping under one thin blanket. the last two nights I’ve been sleeping under five blankets and trying to figure out why it’s still so cold. That and the tendency to go from Bright, Gorgeous Sunny Day to Raining, Miserable, Blah Day in 0.6 hours has got to piss you off. You’re out there, all ready to make big bucks selling kiddies ice cream to cool off, and then BA-WHOOSH, mother nature comes and drenches everyone.
Though the smart ones do what a guy in DC used to do: He’d park outside my high school, and give the first couple of people to wander over (we had open campus) free ice cream to go back to the school and say “the ice cream man’s here,” which people would quite happily do, and the guy would make hundreds of dollars, and only have to deal with bratty rich high schoolers instead of small, screaming children.
Which is a much, much better idea in my book.