MacGuyver ain't got shit on me! or "The iScream Truck"

The Exeter girl called in sick, so I got to cover her shift in a truck I'd never driven before... 163. Sandra had lined up a vast assortment of gigs in the greater Exeter area, and I'd be responsible for tackling that initiative. The truck was stocked and ready to roll when I arrived, so once I cashed out from the day before and collected the requisite paperwork for the day's activities, I pulled the truck over to my Saab so I could transfer over the boombox, iPod and stuff. No sooner than the moment I slammed the shifter into park, the phone rang. Sandra wanted to make sure the music box worked because they had been having technical issues with that specific one. Flipped it on, "Pop Goes The Weasel" blasted out of the horn and that was that.

On my way to my first gig in Exeter, I made it a point to stop by and visit my pal Ken's younger brother who is on school vacation to see if he wanted any ice cream. As I pulled in their driveway, I reached over to the music box to alert him of my presence and there was silence. I futzed with it to lesser and lesser effect, and finally declared it dead after a couple of minutes. Once I had transacted the business at hand, I took the truck around the corner to the gig that was scheduled. Literally 3 people came and bought something, and in the meantime I thought of what I could do to have music without the music box. So once that gig was over, I made a quick trip over to Radio Shack and bought a female RCA jack. I had a ton of time before the next gig, and I was a mile from my house, so I went home to rig up the solution.

I found a test lead in my boxes in the basement that I deemed fit for the task at hand. I grabbed the utility knife that was on the table and cut the cable in half, stripped back the ends and then clipped each of the test leads to the respective + and - terminals on the RCA jack. With that all set up, I ran to my Mac to quickly throw together a version of "The Entertainer" that would sound fine playing through an iPod through this interesting setup. I downloaded the .mid file of the song, and dropped it into GarageBand. I selected the recognizable part of the song and repeated it a number of times so the iPod's hard drive wouldn't be taxed by reloading the same song every 20 seconds. GarageBand allowed me to export the "new song" as an AAC file and onto the iPod it went!

Everything tested fine in the truck... I tested the radio, then a few favorite clips from songs to test the volume and off I went again. The next gig was in Newfields, so I did some neighborhoods out there and tested the new music system. Kids said it was a little quieter than before, but able to be heard none the less. I went to the gig across town, then headed towards Exeter to knock out a few neighborhoods before the next gig. The rest of the afternoon was all gigs, with the exception of a new neighborhoods in between. One woman flagged me down and told me it was her son's birthday -- thinking the kid was like, I don't know 8 or something, I said sure, I'll sing Happy Birthday with you... so she went and got the kid while I went around the cul-de-sac and the embarassed soul was a 15 year old guy. Eh, $5 either way :)

Once the gigs ended, I did a quick spin through Newmarket and headed back to Eliot via my shop where Ken and his brother were fixing his brother's Jeep. I switched from the Entertainer to "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai and great laughter ensued. And that was my day... put the truck away around 9pm and went back to the shop for some mechanical mayhem and cheap beer.

SNAFU = Southern Newburyport All Fogged Up

The weather was all but promising for Tuesday's overcast adventures aboard '151. I had a corporate gig to attend in Salisbury, which of course netted half the number of employees promised. With that out of the way, I set forth on my typical Newburyport route. The island was somewhat dead, no sign of those two girls that posed on my truck the week before... Of course it all made sense when I looked down at the ambient temperature reading -- 65°F.

The neighborhoods were just as bad, even when the sun managed to poke through the clouds. I had one grumpy old bastard yell at me and make obscene gestures to turn off the music. After I finished that side of 95, I took a spin through the neighborhoods near downtown. I saw my friend Lisa whose son had come out to the truck to buy stuff and had a nice chat about the upcoming Simpsons Movie and how the ice cream truck should be converted into some semblance of a Saab.

After the downtown region, I decided for one last go on Plum Island. By the time I finished, I couldn't see across the basin to the other side of the island from all the fog -- I called it a night at 7:40. I thought that I'd be the first one back, the subject of criticism the next day for not sticking it out till dusk... boy, was I in for a shock when I got back to Eliot and and saw all but one other truck parked for the day. I guess I wasn't the only one to have a crappy day. That was my thought until I actually totaled up the day and ended up doing pretty well after all.

Christ, I've been lazy this week...

So Monday I found myself driving the Hampton truck, combined with a charity trip to the teen center in Exeter. The day got off to a rather stupid start when I drove out of the parking spot with the compressor power dongle still attached to the truck. I quickly investigated the scene and realized that the truck's connector had been severed, not the dock end which meant I could easily fix this issue on the road and not have to face any consequence for it. Overall, the day on the truck was pretty boring until I actually brought the truck to my shop to fix the power cable. My buddy Johnny P had called and said he was already there with Ken, waiting for me to go grab a beer with him out in Portsmouth. So I rolled up with the music blaring and lights flashing as Ken nor Johnny had seen me at the helm of one of these beasts before. I confirmed the proper pinout for the 3-phase power plug and reassembled the connector. Then Johnny hopped aboard the truck for the last few miles back to Eliot so we could take one vehicle into Portsmouth for the drinking activities.

We headed towards Downtown Portsmouth (Side note: I am sitting downtown as I write this right now, and I now know why seats were so plentiful in front of BNG... there is this annoying dude making a lot of noise -- like 75% higher than the general din of this fine city on a Saturday afternoon... God, make him shut up! YES! He just left.) and Johnny said "dude, let's try and make a sale before we put the truck away for the night." Well sure enough we turned the corner onto State St. and despite the fact that the music wasn't on, a crowd in front of whatever church that is down there got all excited and one guy actually disrupted the concert that was going on to buy ice cream. We were applauded as we pulled away and headed to Eliot.

I had Tuesday off, and naturally that was one of the busiest ice cream truck days of the year -- July 3rd . I ventured to Eliot to cash out from my dismal sales day in Hampton and requested that the Greenland truck make a cameo at my office (as I usually ask on my days off). A day of Granite Embedded Madness ensued and by the evening, it was time to launch the superfluous collection of fireworks that my buddy Chris wouldn't let the rest of us fire off in his yard that past Saturday. Once the skies above Nottingham were lit up by the collection of China's finest explosives, Drunkasaurus and I made our way to Karaoke in Portsmouth. We were all ready to sing "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey when the pair of cute girls that had pulled up next to us at the bar did the exact same thing... I guess I should have told 'em what we were planning to sing when they asked. So we changed our plan to Kanye West's "Golddigger" to end up not getting called up for the lack of time. Waste of a night.

So then the big day came - The Forth of July. This was supposed to be the crowning moment of the ice cream truck driver's summer, but it ended up being a rainy, unprofitable day of constantly changing plans. I decided the most sound move was to approach the day with my typical Newburyport route and see where that led. Off to Plum Island I went and scrounged up a fair bit of business as the clouds gathered above. By the time I'd made my way around the island, the sky had turned black and the inevitable summer storm was closing in with great speed. I moved inland and called up the Doppler on my cell phone to realize the system wasn't going anywhere fast. I was advised to hit some routes in NH before attempting to "snipe" the Dover fireworks around dusk, but the rain continued unabated as I headed north. So I just finished up my day in Eliot and that was that.

This banner week of ice cream truck driving wrapped up on Thursday. I was instructed to cover Rye and Greenland until I had to do a corporate gig at Nike in Greenland. When Rye proved to be a bust, I called my buddy Chris to see if he was working in the area. Sure enough, he and his brother-in-law were working right around the corner from the corporate gig so I went and sold them some frozen treats. Once that was over, I went to the gig at Nike, sold 5 things and went to Newburyport to do an abbreviated version of my usual route. First stop was Plum Island, where the only good thing to happen was having two very attractive ladies approach the truck in string bikinis and make it a point to take sexy pictures of each other posed on my truck. This fun was quickly extinguished by a guy and his kids coming up to the truck with the kids cutting the girls in line. Weak. Then the rain came back after a slew of neighborhoods, so I was again instructed to work my mojo in Stratham. I stopped to see Ken and his family, sold a bunch of ice cream there and then made my way through a few neighborhoods. Called it a night around 9, and hit the town for some dinner and whatnot.

Much like the previous Friday morning, I had a bit of a, um, uncharming feeling that had to be mitigated. I worked off said hangover all day, was visited by Johnny P (who applied to drive a truck after our shenanigans on Monday) and one of my fellow drivers while I wrenched on my Aunt's Dodge Neon and that's all the news that's fit to print.

My schedule for next week is Tuesday and Thursday in NBPT and Wednesday in North Portsmouth.

Highlights from a few days on, and a few days off.

Let's see, we left off on Monday with my two trips to Plum Island... Tuesday was exactly the same, only hotter. The truck at one point hit 140*F inside! Not too many tales of conquest, my brain was a bit too frazzled from the heat to remember anything funny. I had Wednesday off and took my mom's new 2007 Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan Anniversary 2.oT up to Eliot to cash out. People were starting to wonder what an ice cream man was doing with a brand new $34,000 car, thought I had a good day and all that. I spent the day in the office, got some tacos with Jamie and picked my parents up at Logan when they got back from their trade show in Las Vegas.

Thursday I was presented with an adventure -- a corporate outing in Exeter. So I drove down and parked the truck for a couple of hours. Great success! So after I made more than I make in a typical day in 2 hours, I did an abbreviated version of my daily Newburyport run. I got back to Eliot around 9:30 and as I was getting out of the truck to gas it up, my phone rang. It was my neighbor Emilie who I thought had gone up north for the summer but was actually home for the night and wanted to get her drink on. So I put the truck back in its spot, inventoried and jumped in the Saab. I called Emilie back and said I'd be there in exactly 20 minutes (including time for me to freshen up and check email). True to my word, I did just that and 20 minutes later I was in her driveway. We drove to Portsmouth, and upon realizing that it sucked I said "Why not Newburyport?" Granted, at this point it was already quarter of 11... "Isn't it kind of late to go there? Its so far away!" she said. I shrugged it off and made yet another prediction of time. "We'll be there in 20 minutes flat" I said as we shook on it. I pressed the night panel button and pressed back into the seat as we accelerated onto I-95. Once again true to my word, the Saab landed on time and we proceeded to get our drink on at Michael's Harborside.

Having teetered on that line between charming and tipsy, I called it quits after a deuce of 22oz and another pair of 11oz Sam Summer and we made our way north around 1am. In an effort to curb any adverse effects in the morning, I stopped at the On The Run in Salisbury before getting on 95. The only food greasy enough to achieve such results were the hot dogs stewing in their own grease. I slapped a couple on some buns and proceeded to put some mustard on them when I heard a most disgusting "THWAP!" on the ground -- Emilie dropped her hot dog. We scrambled to throw it out before anyone noticed and she proceeded to prepare another one. As that happened, a couple of younger guys came over and Emilie, who was a touch beyond charming at this point yelled "STAY AWAY FROM THE BEEEAAHHHH! YOU'AH TOO YOUNG TO BUY BEEEEAAHHH!" I just walked away at this point as she continued to harass the 16 year old dudes and as I was checking out I heard her continue to pontificate "YOU'AH 16!! YOU'AH TROUBLE!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT 16 GETS YOU?!?!" and all the truckers and people standing around were totally laughing at her, I decided to utter "TWENTY!" as a crude reference to the age of consent laws in the Granite State. So having quieted that situation down, we got back in the Saab and went back to Stratham.


The next morning, I felt like absolute shit. Those hotdogs were about as effective as the goggles they made Ranier Wolfcastle wear on that episode of the Simpsons where they were making a Radioactive Man movie. So I made a b-line for McDonalds, as they had the classic hangover helper -- the Egg McMuffin! With said hangover helper procured, I hopped on the highway and went to Eliot to cash out from my prosperous day before. With my wallet stuffed, I went to my office and worked for the remainder of the day. Saturday, I did the same. This morning, I installed an AudioTroll in a customer's Saab and at this very moment, I am sitting in Market Square drinking coffee and enjoying the scenery. Giggity-giggity-goo!