Wax a Chump Like a Candle

There is evil lurking in the shadows of my freezer. Would it be the frozen rancid meat? No. Is it the frozen mixed vegetables that I bought that one time last year when I said to myself, "TODAY, I start eating healthy!" No. Fruitcake flavored ice cream? Close, but no. The well hidden but shivering Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden? Not even him.

Of course there is one more question that must be asked: Who would freeze rancid meat? Well, I ask, "Who wouldn't?"

Although the above guesses were well thought out they still did not hit on the true nemesis in my freezer. What I am referring to are the ice cubes deposited and packed neatly in my ice cube "box".

Allow me to explain...

Every night my freezer comes alive. Water is pumped into the icemaker, which proceeds to...umm...freeze the water. Frozen water is ice. At least that is what my 1st grade teacher Mrs. Watson used to tell me. She was always known to be a liar, however.

The ice begins to take shape and is slowly pushed out of it's holding pen. Like alien creatures being born through the stomach of an astronaut the ice cubes fall into the ice cube "tray". There they wait. They know that at some point an unsuspecting victim will flood light into their hideout at which point they will strike.

The "unsuspecting victim" is usually me. I have constantly been classified as unsuspecting.

As I open the freezer door the ice cubes crouch down like a lion hiding behind some brush. I believe I once even saw the cubes shake their back ends like a cat about ready to attack a piece of yarn. But I may have been mistaken...or at least unsuspecting.

I grab a handful of this evil ice when, just as I am placing them into my beverage to make it cool, one flops out onto the floor. The rest make it into my drink, but the dastardly deed had been done. That one ice cube willingly sacrificed itself. It always happens! One ice cube escapes as I try to chill my refreshment. The other ice cubes bow their heads in frozen admiration in honor of their hero.

Eventually, that suicidal ice cube melts into a slippery mess into which I find my foot entering and sliding through. As I lay there on the kitchen floor I can hear their little laughs behind the freezer door.

Mock on little frigid ingots of water, I will repay.