It’s Like A Trigger Being Pulled

So one of the joys of where I live is that we have an old-fashioned ice cream truck that cruises southbound past the house at about 3 p.m. on most weekdays, around noon on the weekends. Well, it just went by a few seconds ago blaring its “Lullaby and Good Night” ice cream truck music and I had to resist the urge, as I do most days, to stop, drop everything and rush out there to get me sheer joy on a stick, otherwise known as a:

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I manage to stave off the urge because 1) it is pretty much against all known social mores (and perhaps several civic ordinances) for anyone over the age of 14 to go running after an ice cream truck, and 2) a Fudge Bomb Pop has a lot of those precocious little units of energy known as calories. Damn them all to hell.

But before you go congratulating me on my success in not making a fool of myself or indulging, it ain’t over yet. Get this: what image dances in my head immediately after the ice cream truck music drifts out of range? That’s right: Foster’s Freeze. And wheeeeeeeere am I just going to happen to be for a 6:30 p.m. river ride tonight? Yeah, about a quarter mile away from the one in Atwater Village.

I am soooooooo there.

But I’m going to pay for it — ahead of time. Thanks to my “Burn It To Earn It” mindframe and I’m already planning to head out for the river ride about an hour or so early and take the long way to Atwater via Sunset to Chinatown and a pedestrian/bikeway alongside the 110 Freeway up to Riverside Drive north to Fletcher and the fabulous Foster’s and get that craving outta the way before I meet up with my fellow IAAL-MAF riders. It’s only about an eight-miler but I figure I’ll have harvested if not an equivalent of the caloric goodness found in a large vanilla dipped cone than pretty close — and I’ll have the river cruise to help zero things out.

All this for a damn ice cream. Do I have no life or what?

UPDATE (9:35 p.m.): Just to illustrate that I’m not a total slave to the ice cream demon, I did do the pre-ride ride I said I was going to do, but opted not to partake of a Foster’s cone after all.