I attended a wedding today. Two former co-workers were getting hitched. I didn’t know who exactly was coming from the office, so I was pleased to pull into the lot at the same time as one of the designers. Within a few minutes the two bosses and their wives and another ex-coworker appeared. Which I thought was nice of them.

My old work and co-workers are all Evangelical Christians. Except for the bride, who is Catholic. Evangelical and Catholic ceremonies are actually quite different.

I grew up with a step-family of Irish Catholics. In other words, lots of people, lots of weddings.

If you’ve never been to a Catholic ceremony, here’s the rundown:

• It’s long. I’ve been to Catholic weddings that went over three hours.

• It could potentially be in Latin. For three hours.

• There’s a lot of audience participation. I forget if it’s called Call and Response or what, but there’s a lot of peace unto people and amens and other responses the audience is supposed to know.

So I dutifully responded with the ones I could remember. I was glad for once that I knew more about what to do than the people I was with.

About halfway through as they were about to do Communion, the person sitting next to me indicated that she was surprised that they didn’t just have the bride and groom take Communion. I told her she was just lucky there weren’t many people there.

I was curious, actually, to see if my companions would go up there. I never take Communion (for a variety of reasons) but I wasn’t sure what the protocol was. Often a priest will invite anyone who has been baptized to participate, regardless of faith. But he didn’t today.

Now I get that transubstantiation is the divisive part of the equation. But I wouldn’t think that taking Communion from a priest instead of a pastor would make the ritual any different. If you don’t believe that the wine and bread are actually the blood and body of Christ, then you’re not doing anything against your chosen sect of Christianity, right?

Eh, I don’t know.

Anyway, long story longer: they didn’t go up.

Nice ceremony. Groom looked dashing, bride looked lovely. I only teared up once when she walked in. Mainly because she was crying.

Unfortunately I forgot their gift at home. I felt a little stupid about that.

After the wedding I drove over to my mom’s house to hook up her computer. And along the way I passed a decommissioned ice cream truck.

Do they still have ice cream trucks? I haven’t seen one in years.

There was nothing better in the summer than hearing the ice cream truck.

But see, it was not a simple event. Oh no. Because the ice cream trucks in my neighborhood had no rhyme or reason to their pattern. So when or if they showed up was anyone’s guess.

And when you heard the ring of the truck, you had to act immediately or it would be too late.

Step one: Locate the ice cream truck’s general location.

Step two: Figure out if he’s heading your way.

Step three: If previous steps have you believing that said ice cream truck will be passing nearby, run like hell to find a parent with some money. At this point, any parent will do. Your own, your friend’s, a neighbor who thinks her cats are her children…

Step four: Run like hell back to your front yard and triangulate the ice cream truck’s new location. At this point, it might be all over. The truck may have disappeared, not to be seen again for days. If you’re lucky, he’ll be bogged down with other neighborhood kids, buying you some time.

Step five: If all goes well, you’ve caught up with the guy and are ready to buy some treats. But if you think the challenge is over, my friend, think again. Now you have to choose. So you spend what seems like forever staring at the side of the truck, going over your options.

First, you eliminate all the stuff that’s too spendy for your budget. Then you eliminate all the themed treats. Because the Scooby Doo pop or the He-man ice cream sandwiches usually suck.

After that, you’ve got the basics: your Bomb Pops, your ice cream sandwiches, your orangesicles, your push-up pops… that’s where the quality is, man.

Now myself, I was mainly a push-up pop girl. Something about being able to gauge your progress by the packaging. Plus once it was gone, the remaining plastic stick and platform deal would make a good toy in a pinch.