Things to Ponder

The other day, as I reflexively emptied the change from my cocoa order into the tip jar at the coffee shop, I wondered, not for the first time, why do we tip baristas? We don't tip the people in TacoBellMcDonaldsBurgerKingArbysKFC, who probably earn a smaller wage and lead lives several degrees more miserable than attractively apron-clad coffee workers in nice grease-free, polished wood environments. They don't make several trips to our table to take our order, explain the daily special, deliver our order, or top off our water. And they don't even give us a nice scalp massage like the hairdresser or get up at 3:00 a.m. like the paper boy.

What is the rate of PTICTD* among ice cream truck drivers? (Whom, I might add, don't get tips...) My across-the-street neighbor drives an ordinary looking Scion, but when he starts it up Scott Joplin's The Entertainer begins tootling out the window. I hear about four bars before he drives away and another four when he returns. Be he must hear it a billion times a summer. That can't be healthy. He has it easy. The ice cream truck I heard at a local park plays Pop Goes the Weasel. But it just plays the first line. "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." He never gets any closure. Does he wake up at night screaming, "The monkey thought t'was all in fun, POP goes the weasel!"?

*Post Traumatic Ice Cream Truck Disorder