5 stories from Stephen Tobolowsky's 'The Dangerous Animals Club'

Prolific actor Stephen Tobolowsky looks back over his life in his collection of essays.

Larry Crowe/AP

2. Ice cream crimes

When Tobolowsky was 10 years old, his father brought him to the go-cart races for the Lions Club and made him head of the concession stand. "Talk about having the fox watch the hen house," he wrote. "I went through half a box of soft-serve cones within the first hour." The person in charge of the event went over to Tobolowsky and became angry, telling Tobolowsky that he was going to count the ice cream cones to make sure Tobolowsky wasn't eating any more. "I was scared," he wrote. "I was ashamed – for about seven minutes. Then I figured I could get around the prohibition on eating ice cream by just avoiding the cones altogether and dispensing the soft serve directly into my hand. No cone. No trail. No problem."