We have had A Little Incident, which is that someone left the standalone garage freezer slightly open on one of the hottest days of the year, and the freezer tried valiantly to preserve its coldness, and perished in the futile attempt. A lesson for us all.
We discovered the situation relatively soon and did not lose TOO much. I moved all the more expensive things (meats, vegetarian faux meats) to the other freezer. A fair number of things could be transferred to the refrigerator (butter, cheese, homemade pizza sauce) or to normal air (bread, rolls, frozen bagged cocktails). Some things should have been thrown out anyway (ravioli that were best by January 2024, leftover appetizers from New Year’s that nobody liked), so this was a good opportunity to do some tidying. We did lose all the frozen vegetables, which were stored in the freezer door and were squashy and soggy by the time we discovered the problem, but those are not expensive. All in all, it was about the best outcome we could have hoped for, if “closing the goddamned door” was not one of the outcomes available to us.
A patron who comes to our library regularly, always with her hair covered, has suddenly stopped covering her hair. I was startled by this, until I wondered if it might be because immigration officials are now grabbing people who “look like they’re from other countries (we don’t mean Sweden or The Netherlands)” and sending them to prisons in other countries (we don’t mean Sweden or The Netherlands) without any chance to first prove their citizenship status. Then it seemed less baffling. Though I did also think of an Augusten Burroughs essay where he talks about the mistake of letting your imagination run with the most dramatic/upsetting option: another possible option is that this patron was covering her hair because her husband wanted her to, but now they’re divorcing. Cheerier! Or it could be, given that this is an area I know almost literally nothing about, that she was covering it for some particular TEMPORARY reason (mourning, postpartum, preparation for something, a season of something), and that that time has ended. Or perhaps she was trying it out as a fashion, and has decided it’s not appropriate. Who knows!
Paul thinks he is getting sick, so…think of me tonight when you kneel to say your prayers.
We have a chest freezer. Actually we have 2.
Went to Mardi Gras 2024 and came home to a busted freezer (I did not find it so am not ruling out someone left it open…ahem). We had a lot of stuff in there. We routinely buy 1/2 cow every 2 years and it was a buy year. Fancy Alaskan salmon. Then like frozen pizza and ice cream.
My friend suggested we look into if it’s covered under homeowners insurance and $250 was. That paid for like 1/2 of the new freezer and none of the food BUT replacements cost $250 less than they could have.
No idea on the hair covering. I do find it fascinating. People tend not to change those things very often and on a whim.
The last line filled me with sympathetic dread.
Every time I hear about a Freezer Incident, I’m transported back to 2013 when I was breastfeeding and we had a temporary power outage and I was SO TERRIFIED that we would lose all the pumped frozen milk I’d been storing in our freezer. It turned out okay.
I would be coming up with scenarios for the newly uncovered hair, too. So interesting! I do hope it’s a cheery reason and not a fear of personal danger.
I hope the hair uncovering is for a happy reason, but with the state of things right now…well, as you say, who knows.
Our freezer died in 2022, and it WAS a good opportunity for tidying. (why did we have so much frozen fish when no one eats it) But also it really sucked because we were moving within the year and we had to buy a freezer that we wouldn’t be taking with us.
A few years ago my husband UNPLUGGED the garage freezer to plug in a SPEAKER and we didn’t discover it for a few days. A TRAGEDY.
Earlier this year I inexplicably just left the door wide open for some reason and that was discovered somewhat quicker and of course since I was the guilty party it was less upsetting! (we lost less too).
Sympathies in your time of mourning.
I just bought fridge/freezer alarms because one of my own children has been forgetting to CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR. One saved incident covers the cost of the alarms. And this is the only fridge we have that didn’t come with included door open alarms and he has left them open TWICE already this summer. GRRRRR.
‘If “closing the damned door” was not one of the options available to us” lol, chef’s kiss. My friend had a similar thing happen but it was inside in the basement, and that was…unpleasant.
I did just do a big meat order from a local place (buying Canadian, go me) and then remembered that weather is more and more volatile and that could have been a big mistake. Sigh.
There’s really no harm in imagining reasons and outcomes for other people unless you end up doing something crazy as a result. I do hope it’s for a nice reason. I have a friend who converted to Orthodox Judaism when she got married, and I have to say, I find the hair covering thing when it’s just a kerchief where you can see most of the hair or a wig so it looks like hair anyway – I have lost control of this sentence. I find it mystifying. But to each their own. But it’s weird.
Starting from the last point first, I hope you stay healthy and that Paul doesn’t burden you with his illness kvetching. I realize that is too much to hope for, but I’m hoping anyway.
Re: hair covering, maybe they’ve recovered from an illness? Or maybe they left a religion? I hate that it might be from fear.
Re: freezer, I’m glad you didn’t lose too much.
Some Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair with expensive wigs that look like ordinary uncovered heads of hair. Maybe she had been saving up and finally bought herself an expensive wig, so she’s still covering her hair but inconspicuously.
This was my thought too! Somehow I keep getting reels on Facebook from an Orthodox Jewish lady. She’s really interesting, so I watched a bunch, which is how I learnt that married Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair – I think because it’s reserved for only their husband to see. So they can cover it with a scarf or they can cover it with a wig and there are some really fancy wigs that you would never know that it’s a wig. So that’s another possibility.
I have two dear friends who are observant Muslims who stopped wearing hijab because they didn’t want people to expect them to be conservatively religious in every way, even though they continue to practice their faith.
I am a reader from Australia and I am so curious as to what a frozen bagged cocktail is??
Oh, they are so silly and good! Imagine a plastic/foil pouch big enough to contain one big slushy cocktail, but it’s room temperature, and it sells for a couple of dollars at the grocery store, in the same section as wine and beer. You bring it home, put it in your freezer; and when it is frozen, you kind of squeeze it in your hands to slushify it, and then you cut it open and flump it into a glass. Voila! Slushy cocktail! There are various flavors, like margarita and strawberry daiquiri and so forth. What I like to do is empty it into a blender, add another lil slosh of liquor and a handful of frozen berries, and reblend it.
Well, this is a REVELATION!! And something we certainly don’t have in Australia. Also in Australia you can’t buy wine or beer in a grocery store, but that’s a whole other conversation …
I know someone who stopped covering hers just…because she decided she wanted to! So that’s another, cheerful option. She didn’t quit practicing but she now has kids so that had something to do it:)
Oh! I cover my hair, but right now it’s summer and it’s so hot, and I’m pregnant, and I have switched to much lighter covers, like bandanas, because of the heat. Wearing a full head scarf can be so heavy and when one is already dealing with being too hot and nauseous, it’s one thing too many right now.
RE the freezer: it’s much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.
😏
We kept finding the door to our upright garage freezer having fallen open and put a child-lock, like a toddler-style babyproofing latch, on it to keep it closed. So far it has worked like a charm.
When my kids were little and in the car with me and an ambulance passed us, I always told them that it was taking a pregnant lady to the hospital. Even now, when we see flashing lights on an ambulance, we always yell, “Yay, she’s having a baby!” Better than the alternative.
This is so wholesome
You are such an entertaining writer! Thanks for sharing with us. Also, we have had numerous such freezer mishaps and lost plenty over the years and my husband finally installed an automatic latch/lock on the door that helps keep the human error out of the equation.
(We usually put the thawed meat out in our field for the local foxes, vultures, etc. to enjoy and he once set up a game camera to see who was partaking. Which led to a fabulous video of a bald eagle ignoring all of the venison steaks and roasts in the pile and instead flying off with an enormous roll of bologna.
After a couple of incidents where our freezer was open a crack and we lost a bunch of stuff, my husband theorized that the door just “pops open” sometimes on its own. Funny how it’s happened after my son has gotten something from the freezer, and after my husband has rearranged the freezer so that something blocks the door from closing all the way, but it has never “popped open” after I’ve put anything in or gotten anything out.
We have this bizarre situation at MY house, TOO! Sometimes, for example, even RIGHT AFTER A FREEZER DISASTER, I will come downstairs in the morning to find the freezer door open! And it is PROPPED open by a pan Paul put in there! It is such an issue WITH THE FREEZER, I guess!! I guess we should buy MORE ALARMS and so forth!