I Scream, You Scream, But No One Screamed like the Ice Cream Man
Photo credit: gwen
For those of you planning to pull pranks on the ice cream truck driver this summer, here’s a tip: If one of your pranks involves climbing a tree with a well-crafted dummy and hurling it in front of the approaching ice cream truck, it is usually a mistake to set it on fire first.
When I was a kid, my neighborhood had a high turnover rate for ice cream truck drivers. The reason, of course, was that my cousin Steve and I, who lived just one street apart back then, were constantly planning crueler and crueler pranks to play on them. Each new ice cream man quickly learned that when he got close to Steve’s house, he needed to step on the accelerator and speed by as fast as possible thus shortening his time in the “Hot Zone.”
Like most twelve-year-old-boys, we started out with the classic water balloons and dirt clods, and then advanced to more elaborate, sophisticated pranks such as those requiring various types of illegal fireworks.
But, then we got the dummy idea.
There are two proper methods to throwing a dummy out of a tree and into the path of a moving ice cream truck: a.) Face-up-horizontal as if some knucklehead accidentally fell out of the tree to die a horrible screaming death beneath the truck, or b.) Face-down-horizontal as if someone purposely catapulted out of the tree to commit an ice cream truck related fantasy suicide.
We went with “suicide.”
But, first, we had to build the perfect dummy. We started off with old clothes, which we stuffed with other old clothes; then we used one of those white, Styrofoam wig-stands for the head and used sticky double-back tape to attach a Freddy-from-Scooby-Doo Halloween mask for the face. Gloves and shoes completed the form.
One of us, I think it was Steve, thought it would greatly enhance the effect if we saturated Freddy’s upper torso and head with Raging Rocket High-Octane Barbeque Starter Fluid then light it off just before we tossed the dummy out of the tree.
It’s funny how it never occurred to us that this was a bad idea until the exact moment the dummy erupted into flames.
We were sitting in the lower branches of the tree which hung about four-feet above where the roof of the ice cream truck would eventually pass. As the ice cream truck approached, Steve let go of the flaming upper torso leaving me holding the knees pressed against a limb and causing the dummy to swing down to stare directly at the ice cream truck driver.
The plan was for both of us to let go of the dummy at the same time so it would fall just in front of the truck, but I momentarily froze in the wake of the tall flames—hesitating just long enough for the truck to get underneath before I snapped-out-of-it and dropped my half.
I can only imagine what this looked like to the ice cream truck driver: He’s slowly driving along, minding his own business blasting Pop-Goes-the-Weasel from his loud speaker, when the flaming upper torso of a body swings out of a tree upside-down; the friendly smile of Freddy quickly melting and distorting into a rictus grin shouting fire like a blowtorch.
As it turned out, the dummy landed square on top of the ice cream truck, lying on its back with its arms spread out, blazing away. We watched as the truck made its way down the street, turned the corner, and continued on its regular route to deliver treats. The flaming body, now appearing as if the driver placed it up there on purpose, sent a confusing message to those wanting ice cream. I doubt he sold many ice cream bars that day.
We never found out if the burning dummy did any damage to the truck, nor did we ever play another prank on that guy. In fact, if we heard Pop-Goes-the-Weasel, we just went in the house.
Dead Rooster is the online home of 
Excuse me for the internet slang, but….
LOL!
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William McCamment
reply on July 8th, 2008 10:44 am:
Thanks!
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My gawd– talk about being lactose intolerant! That poor frozen dairy dessert deliverer.
Or as he was likely later known, The Bad Humor man.
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William McCamment
reply on July 8th, 2008 10:48 am:
LOL
I wouldn’t be surprised to find him living out his golden years in a straight jacket.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! That’s some funny stuff right there! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Man, I’m kinda glad I didn’t know you guys, I would have been in some serious trouble for sure! I would have deserved it too.
How I wish I would have thought of that back then. Not only did we have ice cream trucks cruising the streets (we knew some that sold knives, different story) but we also had the paleta men…those guys walking around with a dry ice feezer on wheels jingling their bells with their hands as they walked around. I wonder what we could have done to them…
Bravo! Bravo! More! More!
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Wayne
reply on July 8th, 2008 10:11 am:
stumbled…
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William McCamment
reply on July 8th, 2008 10:55 am:
Thanks!
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William McCamment
reply on July 8th, 2008 10:54 am:
Just for the record, this was the last serious prank I played on anyone. Ever.
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LOL Brilliant! Glad you learnt your lesson though! =P
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:13 am:
Thanks!
Oh, yes, I learned my lesson, I learned it bigtime.
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Hi-lar-i-ous! I seriously can’t stop giggling! Thanks for making my day!!
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:13 am:
Thanks, Sandy
You’re welcome!
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I barely know you, and the “hoodlum kinship” I feel is amazing.
I never progressed to faking a person’s death in order to potentially scare others…what does that say about me..?? What does that say about you??
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:15 am:
Pretty frightening… LOL
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Good thing you weren’t hurt or caused an immediate accident. The worst I ever did was to instigate my kindergarten friends to stone my kindergarten school teacher. Had both my ears pulled by her until I ran a temperature the following day…
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:18 am:
Stoning a teacher is pretty bad too!
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This is really funny
Like what the doctor prescribed, a laughter a day keeps the colds away 
Thanks for bringing this up and you just made my day right 
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:19 am:
Thanks, Marc! I’m glad you liked it!
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hahahahah! I am practically rofl
i found it hard to read because i was laughing so much…
fantastic
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 4:19 am:
Thank you, Adam.
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This is a very funny posts the delves back into the blogger’s childhood antics. It’s a scream. Read it because I’m sure it will make you laugh too.
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William McCamment
reply on July 18th, 2008 6:51 pm:
Thanks, sunny beach!
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Oh, the good ol’ days.
GREAT confession that really brightened my day and made me feel my childhood was much, much less evil than I originally thought.
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 2:11 pm:
Thanks! Always happy to brighten your day!
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ROFLMFAO!
That was brilliant! Well done, I have a few stories I could share but that beats them by a mile.
“The flaming body, now appearing as if the driver placed it up there on purpose, sent a confusing message to those wanting ice cream. I doubt he sold many ice cream bars that day.”
Au contraire mon frere. I bet he sold alot as it was probably a great marketing tactic, such as; “look how hot it is outside, if you don’t get some ice cream you might burst into flames like our mascot Freddy did!”
Pop-Goes-the-Weasel LOL!
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 9:10 pm:
Wow! Coming from a great humor writer such as yourself I take that as a gigantic complement! Thanks, Static!
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I can’t believe you guys got away with these shenanigans unnoticed.
Where were your parents?
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 9:13 pm:
This particular event was never discovered by our parents; however, many others were, and we paid dearly for it.
Today, our parents would rather we all just forget these shenanigans. LOL
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I read this in my Google reader and just had to come comment, that was soooo damn funny!! Yep, that’s all I have to say.
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William McCamment
reply on July 9th, 2008 9:15 pm:
Thanks, Chelle! I really appreciate that!
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I think I cracked a rib laughing when you two dropped that flaming dummy out of the tree. Sure wish we woulda had that kind of ingenuity when we were younger. My friends and I relied on the time tested method of throwing eggs from our rooftops (and no, they weren’t on fire)…
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 7:17 am:
You almost cracked a rib laughing; we almost had a heart attack. It’s funny now, but at the time, for us, very frightening.
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Mwahahahahahaha! That was an excellent prank!
Imagine dropping a flaming dummy from a hot air balloon, maybe over a family picnic area?
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 7:37 am:
Wow! A flaming dummy thrown from a hot air balloon into a family picnic! With ideas like that, it’s probably a good thing you decided to skip California this year. You are trouble, girl!
Hilarious, though.
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Claire
reply on July 10th, 2008 10:05 am:
Don’t worry its California next year and I have a whole year to think up stuff
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 6:46 pm:
Lord have mercy on our souls!
Oh Shyt that was hilarious.
When my sis and I seen our ice cream man handing out ice cream to LUCKY kids– across the street- We opened the front door– and accidently let out the dogs..
heh.
Sarah
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 12:49 pm:
Those lucky kids with ice cream money…oh, how I loathed them!
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I’m in awe of your awesomeness! The only prank I ever played regarding the ice cream man was on my kids…. I told them that if he’s playing his music that means he’s OUT of ice cream! *giggle*
Great place you’ve got here, I came via a Google Reader recommendation!
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 12:52 pm:
Ha ha! That’s a great ploy! “…if he’s playing his music that means he’s OUT of ice cream!” LOL
Did they fall for it?
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Leighann
reply on July 10th, 2008 1:11 pm:
They fell for it for about a day and a half Some big mouth brat at school told them I’m full of crap.
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Well done. BRAV-O! I think your punishment fit the crime. At least my ice cream man deserves a flaming something crashing onto his truck. Does this bring back any bad memories? This is the man currently torturing our neighborhood. Click at your own risk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqnlN3mkoaA
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William McCamment
reply on July 10th, 2008 12:53 pm:
Oh, man, that may be the same guy…GET HIM!
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Does Steve know you shared this??? LOL
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William McCamment
reply on July 11th, 2008 7:12 am:
As far as I know, he doesn’t know I shared this, but, he has since legally changed his name (for real), and I’m not going to worry about it.
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Uni
reply on July 14th, 2008 8:00 am:
His sense of humor over the years also. You should write the Jack-in-the-box story (though thats a truly visual thing)
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William McCamment
reply on July 14th, 2008 10:07 am:
Funny you should mention that Jack-in-the-box story. I’m doing a series of stories called, “Dead Rooster at Sea” in which, for one of them, I’m going to include the Jack-in-the-box story as part of it.
Man all we did was put GI Joes under the tires not really a prank just more fun for us. Sounds awesome though.
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William McCamment
reply on July 18th, 2008 6:52 pm:
What? No fire!
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Now why would your cousin change his name because of a harmless dummy-on-fire-that-went-bad prank?
Good Lord, you were rambunctious. It was all I could do to get up the nerve to make a crank call when I was a kid.
Margaret
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William McCamment
reply on July 11th, 2008 4:36 pm:
He didn’t change his name because of this incident, he changed it because he liked the other name better. LOL
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Geez, and I thought I was a hellion for burning down 2 acres of trees… at least I didn’t try to give anyone a heart attack! And yeh, I might be a little jealous….
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William McCamment
reply on July 11th, 2008 6:43 pm:
Wow! Two acres of trees!
Petra likes to burn things! LOL
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Oh William, I giggled like a little girl, I swear you crack me up. The worst thing I ever did was stand at the side of the road and throw leaves at cars as they drove by. Scared the shit out of them because they had no idea what was going to come out of our hands. My Dad beat my ass. I can’t imagine what he would have done over something like that.
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William McCamment
reply on July 12th, 2008 12:14 pm:
I love it when you giggle!
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OH my!
As the mother of two small boys let me just say, “I”m very afraid.”
I can so see how this could happen.
My husband and I were just talking about those childhood things you do that seem like a good idea, until the moment you do them.
WOW!
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William McCamment
reply on July 16th, 2008 8:53 am:
LOL Well, don’t worry, most of the frightening things your boys will do you won’t ever hear about until they grow-up and write about it in their blogs.
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I found you through Entrecard and signed up for Humor-Blogs just now so I could rate your blog. Thanks for making me laugh today!
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William McCamment
reply on July 16th, 2008 8:53 am:
Wow! Thanks, I really appreciate that. Every vote helps!
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God
That story made me laugh like nothing I’ve seen on the net in a long time. I just about stopped breathing when I got to “The flaming body, now appearing as if the driver placed it up there on purpose, sent a confusing message to those wanting ice cream.”
Oddly enough, my friends and I used to do the “tossing dummy in front of vehicle” thing when were about 12. Although never quite so spectacularly as that
This was 40 years ago now. Some things never change I guess.
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William McCamment
reply on July 16th, 2008 4:07 pm:
Hi Brent! Always happy to meet a fellow dummy tosser. LOL
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You didn’t start a forest fire so Smokey Bear would be proud of you. Alot of others wouldn’t be proud of you, but who cares what they think. Great story.
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William McCamment
reply on March 30th, 2009 4:19 am:
Thanks, Aramithia!
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Oh, f*cking awesome.
I was recruited by my older brother to help sew dummies to be erected in mute protest of a new suburban development in our town. The array made the papers.
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William McCamment
reply on March 30th, 2009 4:20 am:
Awesome! I’m glad my little incident didn’t make the papers… LOL
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OMG! I know this was posted a while back and I am pretty sure you won’t see this comment, but I laughed until I cried when I read this (after having just gotten over my laughing fit caused by your Volcano Taco post)! Thanks for the laughs!
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William McCamment
reply on March 30th, 2009 4:19 am:
Hi Zandria! Thanks for laughing!
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