Obviously it's been a while...

since I cleaned out our freezer. It's not even a big freezer - just the little one on top of our fridge. (I'll fill you in on the demise of our chest freezer later in this post.) Anyway, back to my story. I'd noticed last week that our freezer was looking yucky. Nothing outright gross. Just crumbs and spills that all combined to give that overall look of nastiness. How, other than the mess, do I know it's been a while since I cleaned that thing out? I found this:

(It's hard to see but the sell by date is in 2004!)

And then, I found this:

(Use by date was in 2001.)

And, just when I didn't think it could get any worse, I found this:

(Yes, that expiration date is in 1999.)

I'm happy to report that everything was removed from the freezer. The entire freezer was washed out with warm soapy water. I returned to the freezer the things that weren't older than Elvis. (I'm sure the thermometer is older than Elvis but it doesn't have an expiration date so I put it back in. I only have it because at one point in my fostering career, they were required. Do you know how many people have checked it in my ten years of fostering? ZERO! That's so typical of fostering. They want to obsess over freezer thermometers while overlooking the basic care of some of the kids in their custody.) Anyway, now my freezer looks like this:

What does this picture tell me? That I really need to do some shopping.

Now, for the story of my former chest freezer. It died a few years back. (I don't remember the exact year but I had both Beth and Alli so it's been in the last 4 years.) How did we know it was dead? Because we smelled the rotting food after it had quit working. Evidently, it had quit working a long time before we discovered it. I know this because we smelled it from the next room. YIKES! We all tried to clean it out. We all gagged. My mom even called my cousin who is a mortician and asked about masks/cleaners/deodorizers to cover the smell long enough to empty the darn thing. In the end, my saint of a mother cleaned it out. She didn't use the heavy duty (and thusly very expensive) respirator the mortician recommended. She double-bagged all the things formerly known as food in construction-grade trash bags and tossed it in our city-issued trash container. We took that thing straight to the street and didn't go near it until after our pick up day.


That just left us with the dead freezer. It was empty but still reeked of the bodies of it's former occupants. How do you get rid of a dead freezer? If I'd bought a new one, that store would have hauled the body off for me. Believe me, the last thing I wanted to own at that time was another freezer in the storage room. I was not ready for a repeat performance. Our city sanitation department does a pick up day for over-sized items. However, they won't pick up anything that contained a refrigerant. I tried my best to assure them that anything that had been a refrigerant had long since left the freezer...that was why I needed it gone. No dice. My mom tried calling them and got the same answer. She finally snapped and asked just how we were supposed to get rid of it. Do you know what the lady at the sanitation department told her? She said "Everyone seems to have an Uncle Bubba or Uncle Someone who will haul things off and make them disappear." Sadly, my family tree lacks an Uncle Bubba.


Fast forward to this year. The decomposing shell of the freezer was still living in the storage room. The smell had long since faded but the body remained. Until Boy Wonder joined the family. You know what he had? An Uncle Bubba or Uncle Someone (I never asked his name) who could make the deceased freezer disappear! And so, 3 months ago, the freezer left my home for it's final resting place. I have no idea where it went. Uncle Whoever wanted $15 for the service. I paid him $40. Money well spent!