neighborhood news

Attack of the Cones

It’s a well-known fact that the Mister Softee jingle brings happiness only to children under the age of 13 and adults who are drunk during the day. To everyone else, hearing the music for more than 30 seconds at a time has the same effect as getting an itch inside your ear canal where you can’t reach it. It makes you mentally short-circuit. Luckily, almost all drivers of Mister Softee trucks are in the latter group of people, and look forward to the moments when they stop their vehicles and can turn the music off, enjoying the blessed silence.

But unhappily for the residents of Inwood, there is one rogue ice-cream-truck driver who has become immune to the music. He blares it at all hours, violating city regulations that he turn the jingle off when the vehicle is at rest. “I have never experienced anything like it,” one neighbor told the Daily News. “It reverberates into the building and sounds like someone is in your apartment with their car stereo blasting.” Recently, the tune was heard for three hours straight, and also as late as 10 p.m. So far, 205 complaints have been lodged, but the man hasn’t been stopped. He’s driving them crazy on purpose! He won’t stop until they reenact that scene from Event Horizon where the astronauts have sex with and then eat each other in their madness.

Of course, it could be that he’s asked the residents of Inwood 205 times to stop calling them “Jimmies,” and this is just his revenge. That could be it, too.

Inwood residents rage at Mister Softee, say jingle blares for hours [NYDN]

Attack of the Cones