5 Reasons Being an Ice Cream Man is Shockingly Hard Core

Not everyone has a bladder of unyielding iron, though: M had co-workers who would store their extra pee in Gatorade bottles during the busiest parts of the day, including, he told us, one who left a bottle of urine in the freezer overnight.

Probably best to stay away from the lemon flavor, just in case.

You put ice cream on the line and kids stop giving a damn about traffic laws. Some children just can't let the magical moment go after the exchange of goods for currency, so they try to hitch rides on the ice cream truck. Presumably assuming the ice cream man drives back to Candy Land once his shift is done.

M: "A lot of kids thought it was cool to ride the bumper of your ice cream truck, and because it's like a huge UPS truck, you don't really see what's on the back. So what I'd do, usually as I'm pulling away, I hit the brakes as hard as I can to topple them off."

Yes, children are made of rubber and healing magic, but the elderly are made of the opposite of both of those things. Glass and gypsy curses, we suppose.

J: "[An unnamed co-worker] actually backed into an old lady and killed her -- totally messed him up. When you drive 10 to 15 hours a day, you see stupid stuff."

Damn, you came here for cute ice cream stories and you're getting straight perversion and negligent homicide. And it somehow gets even more hardcore from here ...

We weren't able to dig up any broad longitudinal studies on the frequency of drug-dealing among purveyors of frosted treats. Plus the guy who understands statistics is on vacation this week and also never existed in the first place. But a few seconds on Google was enough to confirm that some Good Humor men have a little too much good humor:

M: "I was approached several times. 'I know you've got ice cream, but do you have anything else?' I knew people who did sell illicit drugs out of their trucks. As long as you keep it well hidden, no one's going to stop you."

Yes, apparently ice cream is a gateway treat. When Choco Tacos no longer make the world a brighter place, you find the only dealer you know -- the ice cream man -- and you ask him for a little something stronger.

All cash-in-hand businesses (like ice cream salesmen) are magnets for crime:

M: "I was robbed fairly often.

"It's most commonly a group of teens ordering something, then ditching without payment. ... The register is by the serving window. So, often, while you're getting their food, they grab the money from the register and just bolt. I tried to confront them once, which is bad because then you're in an IC truck chasing teenagers, which does not look good. My truck was bombarded with water balloons the next day."

So, the next time you see an ice cream van weaving erratically across your street, desperately trying to run down some children, don't call the cops; he may just be trying to distribute some vigilante justice.

Wait, scratch that. Absolutely do call the cops: that's still super messed up.

But the ice cream man's worst enemy isn't teenagers, or even early-onset diabetes. It's other ice cream men.

J: "When you have drivers in the same territory, it gets nasty. There was one guy, we kept bumping into each other. This guy owned his van, it was his territory, and he'd threaten me. I tried to laugh it off, until one day him and one of his friends parked near me, pulled a shotgun on me, and threatened to kill me if I came back. That was a bit shocking and scary to me.

"I worked in the U.K., and in Glasgow in the '80s, people were killed. They'd have Molotovs thrown in their van. A lot of money is at stake."

Wait, what? When we first asked ice cream men about the dark side of their business, we thought, at worst, we'd learn all the terrible things people will do for a Klondike Bar. We never imagined one of those things was "burn another human being alive." But it's true: The Ice Cream Wars were a reality. And yes, that is the official name for the bout of violence that erupted in Glasgow in the early 1980s. It had more to do with that whole "ice cream as drug-running" thing than man's insatiable appetite for Otter Pops. But still, the main players in a violent conflict that lasted years and led to the deaths of six innocent people (all of whom were burned to death) were all motherfucking ice cream men.

But while the violence in Glasgow died out by the mid-'80s, tensions between rival ice cream men can still get violently high:

"If someone pulls you over on a countryside road, beats the shit out of you, burns your van -- you're on your own."

So, there you go. The next time you hear that sweet jingle rolling down your street, maybe you'll just lock your doors and hide behind the couch.

Haha, no you won't!

Dude's got ice cream. Bring a helmet.

Robert Evans has a Twitter, for some reason. Follow him here.

For more insider perspectives, check out 6 Realities of the Secret World of Paid TV Audience Members and 6 Ways You See the World Differently When You Can Hear Color.

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