Alright, I already told you mine (see above), now you choose
your preferred headline for today’s post:
Kid Knocks Council Out
Cold!
The headlines may be fictional, but the inspiration for them
isn’t, as our neighbors over in Scottsdale
can attest.
You might say it has churned up some controversy.
Alright, forget about the bad puns. The fuss has to do with the Scottsdale city council’s decision to allow ice
cream trucks, which had been banned by the city since the seventies, to once
again ply their wares on residential streets.
Children all over the city broke into spontaneous rejoicing at the
announcement, although many of them didn’t know exactly what they were cheering
for, having grown up without the merry, jingling vehicles that tend to pass by
their houses just in time to ruin their appetite for dinner, but were instead
cheering the general concept of ice cream, and expressing their enthusiastic approbation
for anything that might make it easier to get some.*
*For all those poor, deprived kids in Scottsdale , I have provided a
link to the Wikipedia page for ‘ice cream truck,’ which gives a comprehensive
description of the vehicle as well as a general overview of the service the
operators provide.
Who is it that all those children, not to mention all those other
people who are just too lazy to drive to the corner to buy their Choco-Tacos, have to thank for this remarkable reversal of fortune? The unlikely hero (or villain, depending) is an 18-year-old high
school senior by the even unlikelier name of Leo Blavins. Almost two years ago, Mr. Blavins bought an ice cream truck for the purpose of starting a
business, only to discover that the reason he thought it was such a good
business opportunity – namely, the conspicuous lack of ice creams trucks in the
area – was not due to some oversight on the part of hapless fellow entrepreneurs,
but because the practice had been prohibited by city ordinance long before he
was born. While most of us, especially
at the tender age of sixteen, would have frozen up in the face of such obvious futility
and focused instead on turning our ice cream trucks into supreme-mega-ultra
party vans in time for prom, Mr. Blavins chose to challenge the status quo. It only took eighteen months, but last week’s
announcement means he will at last be allowed to realize his greatest dream,
which, if it were me, would be to drive up to the steps of city hall in said
ice cream truck, hand out complimentary fudge pops to the recalcitrant members of the city government, and tell them to stick it where the sun
don’t shine.
But, perhaps Mr. Blavins isn’t as vindictive as I am.
That’s why they have to be fudge pops.
That’s why they have to be fudge pops.