So check this out, guys: today I got home from work. It was a very long day, and it's very hot outside. The significance of this will become obvious shortly.
Anyway, it's very hot outside, and recently I had traded in a car to get a slower car, because I got a speeding ticket that may or may not be dismissed because the car dealer who sold me my new car took my old car to a calibration shop, which reported that my speedometer was off by a significant bit.
It's a bigger vehicle, and new. And I waxed it yesterday. Some bird shat on it today. The shit was grainy and green. I used a Kleenex from a colleague's car to try to get it off. We were outside and talking about bird shit and patients. It was very hot outside.
I got home and decided that nothing would be better than a ice-cold glass of water with ice. I don't normally use ice, and use it so infrequently that when I do have occasion or need for ice, the ice trays hold only half-cubes, because of some mad science having to do with freezing, evaporation and re-freezing. Then I have to perform twice as many twists of the tray with four times the amount of muscle effort to get the same amount of ice, and it's very frustrating considering how eco-friendly I want to be, and knowing that every bit of effort I exert requires fuel, and fuel is food, and food comes from Cheetos, and Cheetos are made of corn requiring fifty billion gallons of water and beef and puffed with greenhouse gases. So I try to move very little to save the earth. Economy of motion.
Anyway, what could be worse than having to use four times the muscle effort to twist trays twice as much for a single glass of ice water? Man, lemme tell you: doing it all for TWO glasses of ice water.
Yes, I had company. Yes, she was hot. I didn't reach for the pre-chilled San Pellegrino, because she's an earthy girl, and she's seen my eating habits and knows I'm trying to be an earthy guy. And hippies don't drink San Pellegrino, because everyone knows that Italians don't care about the planet. Also, I bought the case of San Pellegrino from Costco. And trucked it back in my SUV. At high speeds. Ok, yes, maybe I'm guilty of speeding. And don't really care about the environment. But man, she was hot. And thirsty.
Baby, you look hot. And thirsty. May I get you anything to drink?
"Sure, whatcha got? Chewchewchew." (She likes gum).
I've got just what you need. Something that'll really hit the spot.
"Hee hee! Ohkay!"
And I smoothly opened the cabinets and got a couple of mugs out (because the glasses are fancy, and she didn't seem the fancy type, and they're all in the dishwasher anyway, and the dishwasher's broken and only fills up with water and doesn't seem to drain, and I stopped using it anyway cuz I'm trying to be green and hand-wash everything. Also the mugs are pretty awesome and ugly and I figured the thick ceramic has more thermal mass and, while taking longer to cool, would keep the water cooler for longer), and glided to the fridge. I bent over to open the freezer so she could look at my hipster designer selvage jeans and my recently more athletic buttocks (I've been cutting down on Cheetos).
And then I just stood there. Ass in air. One hand on the fridge grip, the other halfway into the freezer. Everything was partially frozen over. Not the whole-block, everything's-encased-in-ice deal I had dealt with in undergrad with mini-fridges, but, like, a perfect ice age.
There's snow and frost. Icicles. On everything.
I broke off some icicles and put them in the mug and started to chuckle a bit at the novelty of having icicle water, but she was not amused. There was a distinct look of disgust and horror on her face which in retrospect communicated the following:
1. WTF
2. You have your freezer turned up too high
3. You are using too much electricity
4. You are destroying the ozone layer
5. I wish I were smarter so I could communicate, scientifically, how you're destroying the environment by having your freezer turned up too high and quantify how much of an asshole you are for it, but I'm not that smart, though I'm pretty sure there are no units of measurement for assholeness
6. WTF.
End result: girl gone. Two mugs of icicles. Much sadness. Icicles melted. I drank from both mugs: the water was not refreshing: the water tasted of tears wept in a harsh, harsh winter.
I'm over it now, sorta. But I can't figure out what happened. It hasn't been that long since I've had a Hot Pocket, and the freezer seemed fine then. It's been a bit more humid lately, but I don't think that would cause the problem. I'm afraid of turning down the freezer and having a bunch of water leak out onto the floor.
Anyone have any solutions or answers?
tl;dr: See
this pic. Help.
Note: 10-90% of this may be fictional.
Short-term advice -- defrost and start over. Put all the food in a cooler while you work, then get a big pan of hot water and start squeezing it out onto the iced-up bits with a sponge and mop up what melted and squeeze it into the sink, over and over until it's all clear. Or use a hair dryer to melt the ice (maybe not smart for the way-in-the-back bits of the freezer, but it leads to a neat effect -- if your freezer is cold enough, the hot air from the dryer will run into the cold air from the freezer and create sparks, just like hot-and-cold fronts in the atmosphere create lightning. This happened while I was defrosting a freezer once and I was blown away.) When the freezer is de-iced, wipe everything down with a sponge, load the food back in, and you're good to go. Just put more stuff in there so it doesn't have room to ice over again.
Warning: do NOT hack at the blocks of ice with a knife or something, because you may chip the walls of the freezer and that would wreck the freezer itself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:11 PM on August 11, 2010