Dan Sinker is asking folks to fill out this very brief questionnaire to map songs ice cream trucks play as they trawl neighborhoods. Dan lives in Chicago, where I used to reside. In my neighborhood, in the warm weather, the trucks and their tunes were incessant, and though the songs varied there wasn’t a ton of variety (as you can see in Dan’s survey). His call reminded me of a tale from summers ago…….
Supposedly a truck parked somewhere near Logan Square, for three hours, same song, over and over. After trying to be patient and understanding a local resident couldn’t take it anymore, walked downstairs and politely asked the truck to move on. No dice. Resident calls 311 City Services, explains what’s going on and the woman on the phone line just says, “Honey, that ain’t a 311 call, you gotta ring 911”.
“No, its’ not life threatening, I just want to ask if they can move.”
“Honey, call 911. Your life may not be in danger, but you already lost your mind. Get a policeman there to move them along.”
