Freezer, R.I.P.

When we were expecting our second daughter back in 2002, we decided that our second, old refrigerator out in the garage was no longer enough for the food we wanted to have on hand. So we called Sears during an appliance sale and had them send out an upright freezer, not quite as big as the fridge, but plenty big to hold shelves and shelves of whatever our hearts desired.

We went about making two kinds of chili, pie crusts, pot pie fillings, spaghetti sauce and several kinds of soup, filling Glad containers and sticking them in the new refrigerator.

The last batch of stuff was marked with our trusty Sharpie, “Pea Soup. 9-9-02″. And a few hours later, our baby daughter was born one month early. Talk about efficient.

We ate every bite of that frozen food, serving it to our family who visited and to friends who popped by to welcome the girl but of course stayed to eat.

That freezer has held more frozen meats from Costco, more Christmas cookies, more batches of homemade ice cream and more bags of ice for parties than we ever, ever envisioned.

But then…it began not to work right.

Maybe it’s because we once let the door pop open, thawing tons of Italian sausage and ground beef and forcing us to make massive amounts of spaghetti sauce. Maybe we moved it once too often…three times total. We wonder if one of the legs broke, making it go off balance. Which led to the door continuing to pop open. Which led to the freezer popping open as soon as we turned our backs. Which led to major ice build ups….

We’ve deep cleaned it, thawed it, checked it out. It would work great!

Until we’d go to our garage and see a pink, slimy leak coming from the bottom left corner…Mini Coolis melted along with meat juice, a trail of sludge to behold!

We have thrown out all the thawed stuff, wondering why some shelves were rock-solid and others…soft. We began using only the original freezer compartment of our regular garage fridge.

Since the holidays, when we had massive amounts of things stored up for parties and house guests, we’ve noticed that we rarely use the giant freezer. We have been eating so much more fresh produce, making so many fewer trips to Costco to load up.

This, we think, is for two big reasons.

First, we tend to load up when we’re facing a scary health situation. A new baby, frankly, fit that bill. Having a lot of food seemed almost a caveman response to childbirth, but having a lot of food in the larder and in the freezer was very, very good for our mental state.

We loaded up a lot when we had cancer in our family. We liked knowing that we had at our fingertips the chickens for soup, the hamburgers for the kids, frozen meals galore. Just in case we got busy with some crisis, no one would starve. The freezer was great for the perishables, but we also had plenty of Kraft macaroni boxes on hand. Junk, but no one would starve.

Now that everyone is healthy, we have changed the way we eat and therefore shop. We buy fresh veggies and fruit, several times a week. We do not find it difficult to pick up a whole chicken the day or two before we want to make soup. It’s less of a hassle, frankly, then remembering to thaw it.

We are no longer feeling under siege, we suppose. So we have let the big freezer get emptier and emptier still.

Yesterday, however, we had to pull the plug. Literally.

We went to inspect the final contents: A duck from 99 Ranch, a pork shoulder for a barbecue we never had, some old bean soup, some T.G.I.F. cheese sticks that our son loves.

All soft. Yet, the freezer had been shut tight.

We took all the food, sad at the waste, and threw it out, mad that the garbage truck had just passed us for the week. Then we unplugged the bum appliance. We have a friend who is very handy fixing things, and we’re hoping he’ll take it off our hands. Otherwise, we’ll pay to get rid of it. At last.

We think we can manage without the big freezer. And we’re happy to reduce our electric bill.

The only time it’ll be tough is around the holidays. And by then…who knows? Maybe we’ll fly to Paris for Christmas instead of making 20 dozen cookies and hanging around home.