Ice Scream

1203 Words3 Pages

Ice Scream

Imagine that you and a group of your friends are walking around a coastal community in the dead of summer. Overtime, the heat has become sweltering, your neck and face are burnt and your mouth is filled with the taste of residual salt. As beads of sweat drip down your brow, you turn to the others in your group and realize that they are equally scorched. When it seems like no relief is in site, you suddenly hear the familiar chiming of an ice cream truck in the distance. In an attempt to try and obtain some sort of relief from the heat, you signal the driver and quickly gather enough money for each member of your group to make a purchase. Delighted, you all rejoice in chilly reprieve. The exchange is seemingly innocent. But unknowingly, you and your friends just statistically murdered someone.

In 2007, numerous studies from across the country reported a strong correlation between ice cream sales and murder rates. The question is what is causing such an obscure trend? Is it sugar’s natural ability to morph seemingly well tempered individuals into mindless killing machines? Is it a compilation of the small injustices and aggravating nuances of the ice cream purchasing process? Or is it simply because murderers tend to have a sweet tooth? In the realm of pseudo-science and psychological sociology, any of the aforementioned causes are logical.

Reasonably speaking, sugar does have the potential to cause the typical human to have violent outbursts. It has been well documented that sugar raises blood pressure by causing an insulin release from the pancreas. Insulin has an inflammatory effect on all parts of the body it comes in contact with, which includes the lining of blood vessels. When the lining of blo...

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... On the other hand, there’s always the possibility that murderers simply have a sweet tooth. But without any concrete evidence, we can’t determine which came first. Did ice cream slowly over time create the killer instinct that plagues certain human beings? Or did blood thirsty human beings develop a soft side that required comforting after slaughtering innocent civilians?

That being said, now think back to the coastal community that you and your friends were visiting earlier. The sun is beating down on you just as hard as it was before, the heat is equally sweltering, and you are all still scorched. Once again, you hear the chiming of an ice cream truck in the distance. Now you have some options. You can signal it down and once again indirectly murder someone unknown to you or you can let it pass by and do your good deed for the day. The choice is yours.

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