Try not to laugh when you read this “hint” I saw in the newspaper this morning:
“I use a tape recorder when defrosting my freezer. I take the food out, remove the excess ice, then voice-record the evaluation by talking to myself as I replace the food …”
No, I’m not making this up. I have to ask myself, “Are there really women like this alive?!”
Let’s just pretend for a moment we are in my house instead of this woman’s. In the first place, we really don’t know the meaning of the word “defrost” around here, so the story could possibly end right there.
My freezer gets cleaned out when we move or have a power failure. Period. In between, you will find deer meat from two years ago, empty boxes of waffles, and numerous packages of mystery meat. Oh, and an exquisite collection of bugs that my high schooler is collecting for Biology class.
But let’s pretend that I don’t have a life, I have spare time on my hand, and I actually choose to spend it cleaning out my freezer. Do I “evaluate” the food as I replace it?
If you call chunking half of everything in the garbage “evaluating”, I guess so. If I can’t decipher what the mystery meat is, it goes. If the Popsicles have all melted together, they go. If the ice cream is crusted over with ice crystals, it goes. Empty boxes go.
If I recognize the meat as something I bought this year, it stays. If it’s microwavable food that translates into an instant dinner, it stays. And of course, the bugs stay.
But I can’t imagine talking into a tape recorder about this stuff. This, of course, is assuming there is a working tape recorder in the house, and assuming, of course, that there are batteries in it (all of which are doubtful in any American household with children).
But let’s pretend anyway. I have spare time. I decide to defrost my freezer just for the heck of it. I have a tape recorder that works. I have fresh batteries that are actually the correct size.
“Here we have a package of unknown origin. Let me unwrap it to see if it’s still alive.”
(A short pause with the sound of rustling in the background.)
“Well, it looks like it could be from the meat family since it has a brownish tint, but I can’t say for sure. Could be of a vegetable origin because it has some funny-looking green chunks in it. But what could those red and yellow things be?”
Then it dawns on me.
“It’s the fruitcake Aunt Mable sent for Christmas last year!”
It gets tossed. I have a new one to replace it with. (All freezers need at least one fruitcake.)
Stop. Rewind. Delete.
