It all started when our son stuffed four cases of A&W root beer into the basement freezer.  The cans burst before they froze, so we had a delightfully root beer scented freezer and a waterfall of brown ice flowing off the shelves and pooling in the bottom drawer.

When I found it I may have said a cross word or two–okay, I may have ranted a bit, but I didn’t take time to deal with it right then.  Dinner was overdue, I had somewhere to be, my hubby was working late…we’d get to it tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or the next week.  Isn’t it funny how days can stack up when there’s a nasty job to be done?

And every time the freezer was opened it didn’t seal shut as tight, letting a little more ice build up.  Soon we had our own mini-glacier coming along, and the night before last our son reported having to pull really hard to get the freezer opened (no one had gotten into it for a few days) and said he wasn’t sure how tightly closed it was.

Alarm bells went off in my head, but even then, life took precedence and I decided to deal with it in the morning.

That became yesterday afternoon, and half the stuff in the fridge had thawed.  We threw out at least two full garbage bags–dollar signs floating before my eyes–and scrambled to save the rest.  Then we attacked the massive slab of ice in the bottom of our freezer with a blowdryer, a hammer and a screwdriver.  My left hand caught the hammer’s blow almost as often as the end of the screwdriver, but we got it defrosted and–around midnight–had it cooled down enough to accept what’s left of our freezer food.

Except, of course, for the cream puffs.  A mostly full container of them had thawed out, and while they’re tasty right now, they’ll be gross if we try to re-freeze them.

So….our son, the one who set off this whole party and dance, is stuffing himself on cream puffs.

I’m really hoping he doesn’t learn the wrong lesson from this.

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