I cannot shake this feeling there are things I am not being told by the Ice Cream Man Association. They smile. They look me in the eye. They’re forthcoming with documentation and records. And yet… If they just let me look inside their trucks. Just let me sit behind the wheel for a moment. Let me try on one of their hats. I’m never allowed to photograph pricing information. I’ve never been comfortable with that. And why can’t I find an Ice Cream man that will give me anything beyond an initial for a last name? Those scandals where they were caught letting teams of highly coordinated sparrows pilot their trucks were decades ago. The public knows each vehicle is now manned by a licensed human driver. Why does the Association insist I feel their trucks’...
Author - Chris Weagel
Chris Weagel writes about the intersection of technology and parenting for Wired Magazine. No he doesn't. He can't stand that shit.
Four years ago, Books On Tape World closed its doors for the last time. Since then, the location has been used to warehouse old washing machines, it’s been a Hot Sauce shop, housed a card table holding a single snake in an old aquarium with a cardboard sign in the window that read “Solutions” and, most recently, been home to a coupon-clipping operation that was busted by the Authors’ Guild as a front for a longhand book-copying scheme with rumored connections to Google’s digital library project.
I keep track of these things in a little notebook. It has a sailboat sticker on the cover.
I always carry around a number of black crayons in my pocket. All the time. Always. I keep them on my person in case I find myself in a doctor’s waiting room or a drug store activity aisle or day care supply room – anywhere with an abundance of Coloring Books. And as soon as I’m left alone I set to work! Quickly and efficiently, crayons in both hands, carefully coloring in any and all pages completely black. What better expression of my inner shadow world than page after newsprint page of easter bunnies blackened and burned? I leave the backgrounds untouched. Only the figures are voided. Life becomes its negative. There never was a you! (During these warmer months there is increased risk of these crayons melting in your pockets, giving the appearance you are made of...
Kneel in prayer:
Dearest Father Andy,
Now that you have returned to your Kingdom in the Stars, your power and wisdom released from earthly bondage, I have but one wish:
Please – bring me a pair of Vantex Socks. The only sock that keeps your leg veins warm in winter. Without their superior stitching, I will grow purple and become lost.
In anticipation of this gift I have strangled 14 water fowl and piled them near the leather chute.
I am willing to accept your judgement.
When I was a boy, there was a man who lived down the street. He used to take a rope and tie cats to dogs. Then he’d call the police on himself.
Horrible noises.
Now, some four hundred years later, I live with that crazy man inside a plastic capsule.
His name is Stan. The cat and dog thing was just a bad patch he was going through after the bowling pin factory closed.
Turns out a fox-tailed squirrel has gotten a place on the August Primary ballot for City Council. Strategically, I might have to vote for him. My other choices are the local rapist and a laminated copy of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.
I just don’t think the rapist shares my enthusiasm for zoning reform.
“Nothing is fake on the internet.”
– Wise Man