What If I Bought A Kona Ice Truck Instead Of Retiring?

my roth ira isnt doing well you guys

We’re so back.

That’s right, you’ve been waiting patiently for another edition of The Stump [or, as multiple close friends and family have kindly informed me in the last month, you have not kept up with the blog at all in weeks], and here it is. This one is a real passion project that has been kicking around in the ol’ noggin’ since the early Stump days.

Welcome to my twisted mind. It’s full of spreadsheets.

Let’s talk about one of my top 10 favorite topics: retirement. Perhaps “finance” more generally. You see, I’m that kind of person who distinctly does not ignore her bank account. To a fault, arguably. My banking app is like #6 on my screentime usage. In the past six months I have met with a retirement planner twice just because I liked talking to her. Last weekend I sent these totally normal, not deranged texts to one of my friends ahead of our trip to the local watering hole:

Let me be clear about the source of my passion for finances and retirement planning - I have no interest in being rich. I have no illusions that I will live a particularly wealthy life. I have no aspirations to retire young. I am purely driven to care deeply about retirement by the same instinct that forces fat squirrels to bury nuts in the fall, knowing the winter will be harsh and long.

I have crunched the numbers, and by my estimates I’m not presently sure how any human plans to retire unless a lot of you bitches are making more money than you’re telling me about! In fact, my numbers say that, personally, I must die no more than two years after I retire [assuming I ever do]. C’est la vie.

Surely, I must have crunched the numbers wrong, yes? NO. I factored in raises, inflation, promotions. I was such a model little employee in my spreadsheet scenarios! I toyed with my saving rate, my return rate, the diversity of my portfolio. And yet, I am still coming up something like a trivial 2.5 million dollars short of what I’m predicted to need for retirement by the year ~2060. Coolcoolcool. No biggie. If you are also someone with over 20 years until retirement and not presently making a quarter of a million dollars per year or more, I suggest you call your financial advisor. Or get a financial advisor [i am not a financial advisor, but i am taking clients]. If you are over 5 years out, you’re still plenty fucked too, don’t worry. If you retire next year, mazel tov. You’ll be the last rat off this ship.

Now, admittedly, I make a few……. conservative assumptions….. that are possibly affecting my modeling in a pessimistic fashion. But this is The Stump, so they are correct. I implore you to include all of these hot financial modeling tips in your own life calculations [note: none of these are political things, and if you try to make any of them into politics on me i stg i will cut your thumbs off with a butter knife. doubly true for irl friends and family]:

1. Social security doesn’t exist, at least not for you. Your checks will get lost in the mail. Someone will hack your bank account every month on schedule. You will lose a bet to a strangely shaped man in the year 2031 and have to deed him your social security checks. Aliens will come and demand Earth money in exchange for not invading, and the only funds we have ready are the globe’s social security payments for some reason. Doesn’t matter what you assume as long as you assume no help is coming.

2. Inflation will be worse than anyone predicts. I have to make a disgusting confession, Stumpies…. I have an economics degree. I know, I KNOW. I’m so sorry. But, with that economics degree, I know that they tell us to assume an average of 2-3% inflation per year. But why would you assume that when you could assume the much worse scenario of average 5% inflation per year. Perhaps 7% if you’re feeling frisky. Imagination can be fun!

3. Returns to savings and investments will be less than anyone predicts. How does this square with #2? I don’t know; don’t ask me it’s not like I have an economics degree or anything. All I know is that life is full of disappointments, so why would your bank account be any different?

4. Inheritance doesn’t exist because everyone else is also subject to issues 1-3, so how the fuck are they supposed to have any money to leave you? Also, no one related to you likes you as much as you think they do.

5. What the hell is a pension what are you talking about???

In short, we could all save ourselves a lot of future grief by assuming that nothing good will ever happen again. Was my perspective on this irreparably warped by watching entirely too many stories of people getting evicted from their homes on the morning news circa 2008 during my formative years? No, that’s ridiculous. Did child me save all the coins I found on the ground in a special little box because I was really convinced that I would have to help my [extremely stable] family pay for gas in the event we were living in our car? You’re just being crazy now.

The point is, I assume no help is coming and things will only get worse. As it goes.

Now, I bet you’re possibly wondering why I have hijacked a post that, on its surface, appears to be about Kona Ice - a delightful summer treat - to instead ramble about my economic anxieties and retirement planning. Be patient. For once in the rest of our lives, something is about to get better.

Entrusting my future to a cartoon penguin (his name is Kona and he’s very charming)

I have decided that, in contrast to the gloom and doom above, owning and operating a Kona Ice Truck is the optimal way to enjoy retirement. If you don’t know what Kona Ice is, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to the concept of premium snow cones. We’ve all had a shitty snow cone - that snow cone made at your kid’s basketball game by a PTA mom who has a little nacho cheese on her elbow. Kona Ice snow cones wouldn’t spare a glance for those misshapen ice shards. Kona Ice snow cones are as soft as pillows and twice as fluffy. They boast gourmet flavors like “Strawberry’d Treasure” and “Watermelon Wave.” Kona Ice is a loadbearing pillar of the island lifestyle in suburban America.

a literal tall drink of water in hell

Typically, one is exposed to Kona Ice via a Kona Ice Truck. These trucks make their home at events, such as school parties, sporting events, weddings, corporate attempts at sparking joy in their employee’s miserable lives, and birthday parties. Anywhere folks could use a refreshing and silly pick-me-up, you’ll find a Kona Ice Truck.

It brings me genuine sorrow that I cannot buy each and every one of you dear readers a Kona Ice right now so that I might better convey the intoxicating effects, but allow me to do my best to convey the feeling of having one of these delicious frozen treats:

It’s a warm summer’s day. Definitely a little on the hot side, but not too hot. This particular summer’s day happens to be a Thursday. On Thursdays, your local minor league baseball team has a promotion for both $2 beers AND $2 hotdogs. Because your local minor league baseball team is the best. So, you shell out the whole $13 for tickets to the game and are enjoying your evening having the last cost-effective form of fun left on the face of the planet. The family in front of you finally left after the second inning, presumably [hopefully] to give their obnoxious three-year-old a swirly. The local drunken college kids are in the front row, cheering their heads off for every play and positively pounding the brewskies. All feels well.

But, you are a little hot. And you’ve consumed A Lot of salt [a $2 hot dog is like a challenge… of course i’m going to eat four i’m not a wimpy pissbaby]. So, you could use a little somethin’-somethin’ sweet. Well, you’re in luck! Across the ballpark, you spot an oasis. A tropical paradise. Is it a mirage? Have you lost your marbles in the gluttonous ecstasy of cheap beer and tin foil-decorated dogs???

No. You’re perfectly sane. You’ve just found a little sl(ice) of heaven. You’ve found a Kona Ice Truck.

With childlike glee you weave your way through the stadium. Your home team is down 12 runs somehow, but all the fans are chuffed to the tits like they’re winning the World Series by 100. Finally, you approach the Kona Ice Truck. This one happens to be run by an older husband-and-wife duo. They have kind smiles, and the husband made the small child ahead of you give him a handshake before he would fork over the treats [good for him, learn them brats a lesson].

Finally, it’s your turn to order. You request one King Size Kona, please! It sets you back five bucks, and it’s the size of the disrespectful child’s head. In your cup, you have one of god’s greatest creations - shaved ice. It’s the simplest of simple pleasures. A textural wonderland. It may be summertime, but you are now transported to a snowy Christmas Eve. You walk over to the interactive Flavorwave [yes, the Flavorwave]. At the Flavorwave, you are free to mix n’ match all of Kona’s innovative delicacies. The real ones know that half Blue Raspberry, half Piña Colada is the only way.

You missed three innings of the game waiting in line for a Kona Ice, but every bite brings you to a tropical beach in the Swiss Alps, so you’re too blissed out riding the Flavorwave to care. Kona the penguin smiles down upon you.

You see readers, I simply want to be part of that magic. A Kona Ice Truck is about as close as you can get to literally embodying the sunset years. Kona Ice embraces the island lifestyle in a way that would make our boy Jimmy Buffett proud. Kona Ice is spotting land in the distance after being adrift out at sea for far too long.

According to The Internet™, I could be the owner and proprietor of my very own Kona Ice Truck for the low, low price of $160,000. My excel spreadsheet looked at me in the eyes this week and said “die, bitch” when I asked her about retirement, but she didn’t count on the Kona factor.

As a practical note, this is perhaps the only job where one would presumably primarily interact with children that I would entertain as a life option. You see, the folks at Kona Ice are damn geniuses. When you buy into a Kona Ice franchise, you typically buy one of their delightfully snazzy trucks. This truck is your forcefield, your ice fortress of solitude. You stand in the truck a good few feet above the head of the average child and lower the shaved ice to them as a god giving out scraps to grateful followers. Critically, you are never handling the syrups; the trucks are self-serve at the point of ensyruping. Worst case scenario - a sticky kid wants a second snow cone, and the dollar bills they hand you have a little syrup on them. As I’ve famously always said, if you aren’t willing to tolerate a little dirty money, get out of the snow cone game!

you’re going to sit there and tell me the Flavorwave isn’t cool as hell??? (no pun intended)

one of their cups CHANGES COLORS. who else is bringing that kind of innovation to the table??

There is also a freedom to the concept of owning your own franchise that exclusively exists on wheels. Because the Kona Ice experience is typically delivered via truck, you have a degree of control that I imagine would make most franchisees Lucky Lime green with envy. Don’t want to serve that event? Simply move the store. Don’t feel like going out today? Don’t! Park that sucker in the garage. Yes, you still have to make your money and blah blah blah… but, stacked up against the alternative options of this variety, I contend to you that Kona wins the lifestyle award every time.

The whole endeavor seems quite perfectly designed for someone like me, who has absolutely no experience in 1) sales, 2) food service, 3) event catering, or 4) any meaningful form of customer service [i did answer the phones for congress for a while, but that’s a story for another time]. By having a delicious and universally beloved product, Kona Ice is doing most of the work for you! Or so I choose to believe!

I did a little research, and it seems alarmingly easy to start a Kona Ice franchise. It is, as franchises go, fairly cheap. They quite literally assign you protected territory to cover, which means no fighting your fellow Koneheads. They estimate you can be up and running within 30-60 days. Hamburger University [if you haven’t heard of Hamburger University, i highly encourage the google] can suck it; Kona Ice wants me NOW.

Dear Mr. Kona, please give me a franchise…

Kona Ice specializes in bringing frivolous joy, and there is perhaps no nobler cause to fight for. No one *needs* a Kona Ice in a literal sense; however, in the spiritual sense, I cannot think of anything we collectively need more. After the next several decades of burning the damn candle at several previously undiscovered ends, I would like to be part of something that explicitly helps people cool off and relax. I want to be the weird old lady rolling up to the minor league baseball game to peddle my wares to the tired masses.

this is Mr. Kona and i would, nay, i MUST trust him with my life savings. look at him. look at him again. now tell me if you want your retirement in the hands of whatever the hell a roth ira is or Mr. Kona, the anthropomorphic penguin entrepreneur

As a frequent proprietor of Kona Ice myself, I can speak firsthand to what a well-timed snow cone can do for the weary soul. It isn’t a snack that leaves you feeling gross and heavy; hell, I’m sure it’s technically hydrating! No one ever feels sadder after consuming a bulbous soft ice mound covered in sugar juice. The only regret I have ever had after buying a Kona Ice was not getting the bigger size. The purple-lipped smiles after an Island Rush-Ninja Cherry combo really say it all.

Am I just simping for a brand that I like again? Yes, absolutely. But the solace I enjoy imagining my dream of one day owning a Kona Ice Truck palpably improves my mood, so I’m going to keep simping, dammit! In a world where very few options feel both realistic and desirable, Kona Ice feels both realistic and desirable. And that’s something to hang your hat on. My local minor league baseball Kona Ice vendor seems like a very happy man. He is always wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and he is always lightly hassling the customers. Is it a crime to see that and want it too? The island lifestyle is something to which I will always aspire and perhaps, in retirement, finally deserve. As a wise woman [me] once said: “If we could all just get a little bit of that island breeze in our brains, I think the world would be a better place.” Island breeze? Make it an island brain freeze instead, and you’ve got a deal.

“somewhere over the [kona ice] rainbow"…”

want me to spend retirement in a floral shirt and cool shades? help me ride the Flavorwave!