For nearly forty years, I’ve been trying to find out the truth of something that happened to me—and I’m starting to realize I may never know that truth. Recently, I decided to pitch This American Life on the idea of doing a story on the incident, thinking they could either find out what really happened, or failing that might be interested in pulling together a themed episode on multiple people who have mysteries about their lives which may never be solved. And when I mentioned on social media that I’d done this, a few of you were intrigued, and wanted to know more about this mysterious event.

Since it’s unlikely This American Life will be interested, and since, who knows, perhaps one of you could solve this mystery, I figured, why not share it here?

This incident occurred in the mid to late ’70s, prior to November 2, 1978. I say this because that’s the date on which I began keeping an almost daily diary, and when I searched through my entries for a contemporaneous accounting from then until the day I left New York in 1985, I found nothing. I would surely have written about this, so it had to have happened earlier, probably in 1975 or 1976, when I would have been 20 or 21.

One afternoon, I was sitting in front of the McGraw-Hill building on Sixth Avenue with my back to a giant, gleaming triangle that tracks solstices and equinoxes. (If you live in New York, you’ll know exactly where I mean.) I often hung out on that spot, because my father was an Art Director for McGraw-Hill, and I’d wait there until it was time for us to have lunch, or for him to get off work. But on that day, something unusual happened.

While I sat, watching the traffic, an ice cream truck heading north pulled up by the curb, and the driver ran out toward me, saying he desperately needed to use the bathroom, would I please watch his truck? And almost before I could respond, he ran off into the building behind me.

So I stood by the truck, because that’s what one does in such a situation, and the instant the man vanished, a woman came up to me wanting to buy ice cream. I turned her down, telling her that it wasn’t my truck, and I couldn’t possibly sell her anything. While I was speaking to her, a second person showed up, then a third, then a fourth, until I was surrounded by at least half a dozen people simultaneously clamoring for ice cream.

I was overwhelmed by the shouting, and the people attempting to thrust money at me. I refused repeatedly, and once I’d demurred enough, I guess they finally believed me, knew there was no way I was going to crack open that freezer, so they all ceased their pleas and walked off at exactly the same moment. And with perfect timing, once they’d vanished back into the crowd, the driver ran out of the building, thanked me, and took off.

I remain convinced, not just because no driver would trust a scruffy twentysomething with his ice cream truck, but because the timing was too, too perfect—an immediate crowd that appeared and dispersed, perfectly matched to the disappearance and reappearance of the driver?—that I was the subject of some sort of Candid Camera-like show … and I had failed them. In my mind, there has never been any other possibility. I believe that because I wasn’t spontaneous enough, because I didn’t rise to the occasion and begin selling ice cream, and then present the driver with a fistful of dollars, I didn’t make for entertaining video, and so ended up on the cutting room floor somewhere.

I’ve tried for years to find out if this is true, if a hidden camera show was being filmed at that time, if footage of me not being good enough exists … and have failed. As someone who considers himself funny and spontaneous and good at improvisation, the idea that I wasn’t good enough to rise to the occasion of this prank has bothered me. But on the other hand … maybe it was all a coincidence. Yet with that timing, how could that even be possible?

Whenever I have cause to think back on this incident, it irks me that I may have failed a test. But it irks me even more that I may never know whether there was anything to fail or not.

If you have any information that could help me put this puzzlement to rest, please let me know!