We all have periods in our lives when things just won't work out. These periods can be brief or prolonged, and the problems tangible or emotionally rooted. In my case, there is something wrong with my freezer, and this issue has been unresolved for months.
When I first moved in over the summer, it was functioning as a normal freezer should. It froze ice and preserved frozen summer staples, like those puzzling freezer pops that are only identifiable by color, so you don't know whether the yellow is peach, lemon or the nastiest option: artificial banana. Then gradually as the year went on, though the dial was turned to the lowest temperature setting, items in our freezer began to melt. For someone whose favorite food is ice cream, someone who buys Ben and Jerry's Crème Brulee in bulk when it is on sale at Harris Teeter, a faulty freezer is somewhat of a disaster.
There is nothing more disappointing than opening a melted pint of ice cream, except trying to eat it anyway. Soupy melted ice cream is just one casualty of a broken freezer. Frozen meats become suspicious; fears of ingesting salmonella become all too real.
So realty company work orders were filed, and the freezer repairmen thought he had found the culprit: an exploded bag of chickpeas in the back of the freezer had impeded its cooling capability. I insisted it must have been there before we moved in -- I've never frozen a chickpea in my life, after all.
The freezer repairman took a blowtorch to the peas, a pretty hard-core approach, and we figured the problem was solved. But then ice started to freeze more slowly, and freezer pops remained in their liquid form. It seemed like a violation of science until I stuck my hand in the freezer and realized it wasn't any colder inside than out.
Months later, after I accepted the fact that I could not buy ice cream in more than a single portion at a time, a realtor repairman entered our apartment, mumbling something about outstanding repairs.
I had come to terms with the freezer being out of my life and I was ready to deal with our estrangement, but I jumped at this opportunity to remedy the situation. I demanded the repairman tell me why the freezer was not freezing ice cream even after it was supposed to be repaired, looking as serious as one can in pink pajamas at 11 a.m. He told me, "Well, ice cream is really hard to freeze. It usually takes 20 below to do it, which is like 10 degrees less than water, so ... that's why."
How do you respond to that? I already knew something was up with the temperature difference. I have lived with a freezer all of my life, and none of my previous freezers ever suddenly decided to stop working. The issue wasn't that it couldn't freeze ice cream, it was that it's not OK that it couldn't freeze ice cream.
It's easy to compartmentalize your feelings about the freezer not working. But I've never understood those who compartmentalize their problems. My sympathies are closer to the dwellers, who refuse to eat anything but melted Ben and Jerry's Crème Brulee until the problem resolves itself. Or Cinnamon Buns. Or Cherry Garcia. But why torture yourself when you know the ice cream won't be perfect? And the freezer is most likely irreparable. After the repairman fed me the line about ice cream freezing temperatures, I felt that arguing for a new freezer would have been hopeless.
There are situations that are impossible to solve, but in the end, what matters is how you let these hopeless situations affect you. Maybe that's counterintuitive, but though you may compartmentalize and pretend the problem doesn't exist, you still cannot deny that your freezer is not freezing ice cream.
When you and a freezer are on the outs, it's easier to play it cool. But you'll just secretly wish you were enjoying ice cream the entire time and resent your freezer even more for acting the way it is. Although, knowing you can get ice cream somewhere else makes it all that much sweeter...
Mary's column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at mbaroch@cavalierdaily.com.
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