What happened to the luster of the Ice Cream Truck

Recently I passed an ice cream truck and it got me thinking.  Ice Cream trucks were invented and shined back in the days where there weren't stores on every street corner and when you couldn't buy ice cream from just everywhere (seriously ice cream availability is more common than literacy in this country).  They were developed during the rise of suburbia, when individuals all disposable income thanks to the economic boom due to the war, and were scared shitless by Joseph McCarthy.  These trucks conveniently carried their sweet treats to kids that didn't have ice cream as readily available as those living in the city.  There was a demand and these vehicles filled it.

As a kid the ice cream truck survived as a myth, and rarely made the pilgrimage to my neighborhood.  It was a symbol of freedom.  The ridiculous song that played rang like music to my ears.  It brought promises of goodness, sugary goodness that my parents couldn't prevent me from ascertaining, due to my private income (that's right bitches, I had saved money from mowing lawns).  A beacon of hope to any child.


As I passed the truck this time though, it was different...
There ceased to be the glow that once drew me towards it.  The tune was annoying and slowed me in my travel.  What happened to the luster that once was the Ice Cream truck?  Oddly enough, the purchase of overpriced Popsicles in the shape of licensed cartoon characters being distributed by an elderly individual who presumably had a felony record all within the confines of a beaten up truck, no-longer entices me.  Sad, but inevitably true to admit.  Now the price is understandable, fueling the truck and the wage of the vendor is added to the manufacture of the product.  However, $4.50 for Spongebob on a stick isn't my idea of a good time when there are over 7 locations within a fucking mile of my house in which I could buy some form of ice cream for less.  That sounds like a much better decision especially considering the obvious fact that those adorably shaped snack usually tasted like shit anyway.  Yeah, we all looked like bad-asses eating ice cream endorsed by Batman, but they always threw in a gumball or something equally as stupid in hopes of covering for the fact that we were consuming grade-D ice cream (Why the hell would I want to eat a warhead halfway into the thing?).  And I can't imagine the damage that the overwhelming use of dyes provided.

Economically, the idea of the ice cream truck no longer makes sense.  Kids are now afraid to go outside now due to the fact that they might miss whatever garbage Cartoon Network is showing (another time).  They'll have a hard time hearing that tune over the sound of their trash talking on call of duty (best believe I'll be attacking that as well).  The target audience is greatly diminishing, meanwhile gas prices are skyrocketing.  I'm going to take a stab and say that a truck containing a freezer isn't the most fuel efficient of transportation.  It's only rivals are the Batmobile and Hummers (what ever happened to those?).  I hate to declare a childhood fantasy dead, but what's the point of Ice cream trucks anymore?