Hampton in the '555

I called the office this morning to tell them I wanted in, to which the immediate response was "come in tomorrow to watch the safety video and we'll put you on a route". So a day at my real job was shaping up... until I was 100' out of my driveway. Cell phone reads off the number of the office over the car's audio system and I picked it up. "Carl, we've just had an opening today... how soon can you be here?" I told her 25 minutes, put a little gas in the Saab and headed to pick up my truck.

I savored every minute of spirited Swedish motoring as I knew things were going to get a lot crappier behind the wheel of a Grumman. I cranked the stereo and my minuscule amount of turbo boost, two luxuries I'd lack for the next 9 hours. I arrived right when I said I would, lunch in hand. I got to watch 12 glorious minutes of "Safety Steve", with his 1986 polysynth soundtrack, reminding me that a Grumman box van with a 900lb freezer unit mounted longitudinally along one side of said vehicle will be top heavy and unable to maneuver fast corners.

Once the video was over, I was assigned my route. Today I'd be covering Hampton, NH in the '555 truck. I was given a cash box and all was right with the world as my truck sat idling outside, already stocked to the brim with frosty treats. I hopped aboard and stuck my lunch in the freezer. All the electronics checked out so I slapped it in drive and hit the road for Hampton. Now I am scared to death to put one of these things on I-95, so I took Route 1 south into Downtown Portsmouth. At noon, nobody was really clamoring to buy ice cream so I managed to sneak through the general mid-day din of my favorite city in the state. I arrived in North Hampton at the first destination some 15 minutes later. When I pulled into the parking lot of this limo company that I was told to visit, the music box didn't work! I frantically checked all the connections in the truck, the fuses, all that... I called the guy that works on the trucks and he told me to check the splice outside at the loudspeaker. Sure enough, the positive supply to the speaker had failed at the butt connector. I stuck it back together as best as I could and commenced to bring attention to myself.

I made my first sale at a little used car dealer on Route 1 -- practically everyone came out when I rolled through! It was then when I realized that an ice cream truck can't go anywhere without grabbing attention. I rolled through some neighborhoods and then stopped along the sea wall (see right) to have some lunch and you know, not attract business or anything. In driving through some of the neighborhoods and past the schools around the time the kids would be getting out, I realized that the kids were out for the summer and I could really crank up the marketing initiative.

So up and down the streets of Hampton I drove, selling a ton of ice cream and planning the next move. I ventured over 101 and 95 to a couple of recommended neighborhoods and ended up in a trailer park where my presence was not appreciated by one woman. She ran out of her garage and started yelling at me about how it was a retirement park and nobody wanted ice cream, how the manager would chase me out of there and they'd call my boss. I just laughed as I drove off. Hey, my boss wouldn't care if she got that call -- it just means I was trying new places!

After that bombshell, it was getting to be about 6:30 and there was about two hours of decent sales opportunities left. I made one last appearance at the sea wall for 5 minutes then cruised the neighborhoods for the remainder. One quick bite from the dollar menu and I was on my way back up Route 1 to return the truck. As I made my way on to State Street off Middle Street in Portsmouth, three girls loudly acknowledged my presence as I started to speed up. So my last stop of the day was right on State Street. I brought the truck to the Irving station, gassed 'er up with $28.09 of the North Atlantic's finest regular fuel and drove across the street to park the truck for the night.

One day down -- many more to go.