I think I've figured out my lifestyle for when I get rich... buy a condo at some ski resort up north to live in during the winter, and live on Plum Island the rest of the year. It's almost hard to remember that I'm in Massachusetts when I'm out there. 99% of the folks are real friendly, the beach looks really nice and houses aren't all that expensive anyway... well, relative to some of the mansions up on Little Boars' Head or Rye. But I digress.
My day started in the humble town of Eliot, ME as always. I arrived about 10:30 so I could get my truck really spiffed up for the day's activities. Once I cleaned out the previous driver's trash and empty boxes, I took the truck over to where the hose was hanging and gave the truck a thorough cleaning inside and out. A quick stop at Irving to confirm the tank's fullness and it was off to I-95. I brought my EZ-Pass so I wouldn't have to stop to pay the toll -- any superfluous acceleration up to 50mph would cost a lot more than the $1 toll. A few minutes later, I was at Exit 57 in Massachusetts and ready to make some money.
My first stop, of course, was Plum Island. Apparently, there is a competing ice cream truck that has Newburyport as a territory. I've never seen said truck, but apparently the driver that had my truck the day before passed said truck heading to the island and didn't make a dime out there. By getting to the island nice and early, I could make a ton of sales and scope out which rental houses were occupied so when I made my 2nd pass at 8:30pm, I'd know what areas to concentrate on. Hot British Nanny is actually Hot British MILF, much younger than her husband I'd guess but whatev. After dubbing around on the island for an hour or so, I headed inland to start the sweep of neighborhoods.
Nothing too exciting really happened in the neighborhood routes, just sold a ton of ice cream. Didn't get kicked out of the skate park, so that made my afternoon as every kid bought something. The truck didn't stop rolling until I settled down at the wharf for a few minutes around 6. Alas, nobody on the wharf wanted ice cream so I just kicked around more neighborhoods in the eastern part of downtown. Making my way back out to Plum Island, there was a good line of cars behind me, but the speedometer in the truck said I was doing the limit so I just kept on going. When I arrived at the island and pulled over to make a sale, some ass in a Passat yelled out his window "You should have done that 3 miles ago!". Well, there's one house that I'm sure was not getting ice cream. I was flagged down by a family in one of the rental houses. The Quebecois used a translator to order all the ice cream and it was funny to see them all try to make sense of what I had to offer. After that, I headed out towards the lighthouse. I saw a party with folks my age hanging out on the front porch and made it a point to stop there on the way back. When I did, I sold a great deal of ice cream and partook of their peace offering. Safety Steve would be a sad panda.
Never the less, it was getting to be about 9:15 and I wanted to get home at some point, so I shut down for the night and made my way north to Maine to return the truck. I had used an unprecedented amount of gas in my adventures, over 13 gallons! I fueled the truck and brought it back across the street to the yard. I had the last parking spot available, but when I landed, I realized that all the power cords to run the compressors on the trucks were transposed down by one spot, so I had to go unplug every truck and re-plug them with the appropriate cord. Once my inventory was set and truck was secured, I returned to the Saab and started to make my way home.
But it doesn't end here, no no! I was just getting onto I-95 South at the Maine/NH Border in Eliot, already doing 85 because I had been driving the ice cream truck all day and needed to feel some thrust from a turbocharged mill. As I sped over the Piscataqua River bridge into NH, a black Volvo station wagon inched closer to me in the right lane. Naturally, as I rounded the curve after the bridge, I matted the go pedal and left him very much in my dust. Then, I don't know if it was driving in a 126*F truck all day, but it looked like the Volvo was gaining on me! We were on the bridge over the Spaulding Turnpike at this point and I could visually confirm the lack of authorities ahead, so I said to myself "That fucker better not have a Turbo" and I pulled right up to 110mph. Once he was a good 1/4 mile behind, I ducked off at Exit 3B and stayed in the left-most left hand turning lane to head towards Stratham on NH-33. I sat at the light for a good 30 seconds and there were those distinctive 240 headlights in my mirror. The light turned green as he slowed down, I matted it, naturally sloshing through the gears as he ran side by side with me. "Fuck it!" I exclaimed as I punched the throttle once more, pulling from 40 to 60 in the blink of an eye. He knew it was over, backed off and I drove home a tired and smug man.
Yes, a 9-5 vs. a 240 is like putting Peyton Manning in a Special Olympics touch football game, but it's not so often I get to have this sort of fun!
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