A Nighttime Story

Recently Precocious Daughter failed to close the freezer door all the way. As I discovered several hours later.

It's not, actually.

Fortunately, it was only left open by a fraction of an inch, so nothing actually thawed and was ruined. Probably the ice cream got soft and then refroze with that weird gummy refrozen-ice-cream texture. But I don't eat ice cream, so that was pretty fitting justice for PDaughter's crime.

The ice in the ice maker bin got the worst of it. It melted just enough so that when it refroze, it more or less transformed from individual cubes to a miniature iceberg. PDaughter was a) quite annoyed when I told her to take the handle of a wooden spoon to chip off pieces for her drink and b) too damn lazy to just empty it and start a new batch of ice cubes.

Eye rolls: A leading cause of climate change.
I expect my Nobel Prize in the mail.

So last night I took the initiative and dumped out the ice clump. I had to move a tray of frozen Thai peppers, a box of taquitos, and some leftovers to get to it, which I suspect is made her reluctant to do it herself. On the other hand, I also suspect that the sheer density of items in my freezer is the reason they were all able to stay relatively frozen when the door was left open. I can justify clutter in every space of my home, you guys.

Amateur.

Anyway. I replaced the empty bin and turned on the ice maker.

Aside: I may have mentioned this before, but the entire time I was a homeowner - 19 years - I never had a freezer with an ice maker. I was Team Use-Ice-Trays-and-Get-Pissed-Off-Every-Time-Someone-Failed-to-Refill-the Empty-Trays. Moving into an apartment and having ice on demand was one of the best parts of the divorce.

Sad, really.

So I turned on the ice maker shortly before I went to bed.

You want to know a fun fact?

The sound of ice cubes dropping into an empty bin in the middle of the night in an otherwise quiet apartment is TERRIFYING.

Imagine the sound a clown makes just before
he stomps you to death with those big shoes.

I typically turn on the ice maker before the bin is empty. The sound of ice falling on ice is much less noticeable. It sounds much less like someone is someone is trying to open your front door with a hammer, is what I'm trying to say. At irregular intervals. ALL NIGHT LONG.

So forget this Daylight Saving Time spring-forward nonsense. I lost way more than an hour's sleep last night.

But this morning I'm pleased to report that I'm alive and well, my front door is intact, and we have ice cubes again.

Pro-tip: Lavender oil is known for its calming properties, but if you put it under your nose to try to help you sleep, that shit burns.

But that's another story.