I have this
friend. I will call her Harriet. She has red hair, a pair of beautiful blue
eyes, and a personality to match. And she can be simply hilarious!
She is Mrs.
Homemaker. Her husband and sons farm, and she cooks up a storm during harvest.
She loves to bake, to cook, to freeze, to plan ahead.
I say all
this because she recently lost an old friend, her deep freeze.
It was an
“International Harvester”, she says, and was at least 64 years old. It had been
running efficiently all these years!.
The freezer
was full of good things. Her family loves meat, and she often stocks plenty of
frozen edibles for her “boys”. There was lots of venison in the deep freeze,
several large bags of ice, and a deer head.
Yes, that’s
what I said. A deer head. The head was a male deer, a buck, and it had antlers
attached. The head was in a garbage bag, but the antlers stuck out of the bag.
The bags of ice were lying on top of the head.
Son, Flint,
had asked his mother previously if she would have room in her freezer to “store”
the head since he couldn’t decide whether it was worth taking to the
Taxidermist. He talked smooth and fast, and Harriet reluctantly agreed since
she had more room in the freezer than usual.
She told me
that when the freezer stopped working, it took a while for the meat to thaw,
begin to rot, and to cause “wafts” of peculiar smells to make their way to the
living quarters. They had picked up little “sniffs” for several days.
Both
Harriet and Wilbur searched the kitchen for the source of the odor. Neither
knew that the other one was looking…But they individually searched the
cabinets, under the stove, and anywhere else that a dead mouse might be
trapped.
Oh did I
say that the freezer was in the basement? Yes, in fact, the freezer had been placed
in the basement about 64 odd years ago. The “old feller” had been lowered into
the dug-out basement with ropes. The walls of the basement had then been built
around it. Subsequently, the house was
built over the basement. The freezer was totally surrounded by walls with no
egress except for a narrow stairway.
It was not
moveable.
Finally, at
10 p.m. that night, Harriet decided to go to the basement and look.
When
Harriet and her husband Wilbur finally figured out the horror, the truth, the
unimaginable source of the SMELL, they knew that obviously it needed to be
opened and cleaned out.
Mixed in with
rotten meat, was melted bloody slush, and under that slush was….you guessed
it…the rotting deer head with the antlers sticking out of the bag.
First the bloody
water which smelled to high heaven…had to be scooped out. All Harriet had at
her disposal (in the basement) was a goblet from the Rozel Jr-Sr Prom. She
grabbed the glass and began scooping, dumping the wretched water into a bucket.
Hold your
nose, Harriet!. Then Wilbur, bless his soul, had to carry the rotted deer head
up the stairs and out the door.
Harriet
remarked that “Thank Goodness it was freezing outside so that the mess could go
in the back of the pick-up since it would re-freeze!”
Imagine it.
It’s in a bag, but it has antlers sticking out on each side. Those antlers are
loose like a tooth when the flesh to which it is attached no longer supports
the tooth.
Then the next level was to remove the rest of the meat and
food.
Now, when
food rots in a refrigerator or a freezer, the smell never leaves once it
permeates the insulation. This compares to finding road kill and having to not
only remove it but also scrub the surface where it lay.
Ugh and
double ugh.
Harriet
definitely needs a new freezer. However, before she can buy and move a freezer
to the basement space, she and Wilbur must remove the old freezer.
It’s too
big for the stairs. This means that the freezer will have to be taken apart,
chopped up or somehow dismantled before it can be removed in pieces.
We wish you
well. Please accept our condolences!
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