What’s Sixty Dollars and Weighs a Ton? September 15, 2018
I’ve been hankering for an apartment sized freezer for almost three years. The desire started shortly after moving from 465 Loach’s Rd. to a Bed and Breakfast (with a full kitchen) in St. Catharines in June of 2015. We had just left a functioning freezer on the side of Loach’s Road – and it got picked up immediately. But it was massive sized. You could have fitted a whale inside of it – not that I would have – and still have had room for buckets of Chapmans ice cream – which we did for many years.
Laur and I don’t eat meat or ice cream anymore, but I do love to cook in bulk. I learned to do this as a volunteer at a frontier school some 30 years ago – and have never looked back.
After we moved from our B & B to our Life Lease Seniors’ Apartment here on Vine St., we now had space for one. The easy thing to do would have been to go to Best Buy or Walmart and buy the cheapest freezer. But that would be too sensical and easy – and wouldn’t make for a very good story, would it? And truthfully, I detest shopping. I was hoping an apartment sized freezer might fall into my lap, sort of. It didn’t.
First, I posted an ad on our building’s community bulletin board that Laur and I were looking for one. Only to learn that half the building was looking for one. (That’s a bit of an exaggeration – but for sure, no one was looking to get rid of the freezer they had.)
Next, I posted an ad on kijiji. No responders – at least at the price I wanted - $75 or less.
My interest ebbed and flowed for a couple of years and then last week it got real. After a family get together was finished we had 18 burgers, 24 buns, two buckets of ice cream, and half a Costco-sized cake to get rid of. And we needed a place to store all that surplus. (We also had buckets of potato salad and coleslaw but they aren’t known to freeze well.)
I found an ad on kijiji – an apartment sized freezer for sixty bucks AND it was only a five minute drive away. Emailing Diana (not her real name) to book a viewing and buying was easy enough. But finding a time that worked for all parties – that was the rub. She worked most nights until 8 pm and my 8 pm is like your 11 pm. Not a great time to pick up a freezer.
Finally, we hit on a time midafternoon that would work for her and her teenage son and for Laur and me. I offered to go get the freezer myself – Laur was not keen on this purchase – but he insisted on helping. It makes me chuckle, all the things I managed to bring into 465 Loach’s Rd without his help. Still, that was then and this is now.
We got to the apartment and could not find Diana’s “buzzer” button. After a few failed attempts at phoning Diana’s son, we finally reached him. He and his friends were going to bring it down for us. So much for taking a look at it first. Ah well. How bad could it be? We must have waited 15 minutes in the lobby for them. We were there long enough for the superintendent to ask if she could help us in anyway…
And then they arrived and I realized why it took three of them 15 minutes. It was one of those older freezers – possibly left behind by the Vikings – but hey, in for a pound, in for a ton. The three lads hoisted the freezer into our van. I paid my $60 and off we went to the grocery store.
En route Laur said to me, “Explain to me again why we need this freezer?” You see, in the meantime, I’d found a happy home for all the leftovers from our family get-together – the Social Activities group at our Life Lease, and they were now in the Activities Committee freezer (and fridge.)
When we got to the grocery store I pointed out how the multi-grain bread we love was on sale for $2.00 (vs. $3.00) and I now had the space to buy several loaves. Laurence pointed out that we could have bought a lot of bread for $60. True, dat, but according to my math all I have to do is buy 60 loaves at this lower price, and we’ve paid for our freezer (if you don’t include the price of electricity which may be somewhat higher on an older freezer.)
But we had a bigger challenge ahead – getting our QuickFrez (yes, that’s the make) from our van into our apartment. Getting it out of the van, not so bad. We kind of dropped it onto a trolley. Getting it off the trolley, and into our kitchen…not so good. I dropped my end on my left foot. My poor big toe is already arthritic – this is not going to help.
The outside of the freezer was quite clean. That made me hopeful about the inside. The inside – well it was clean, but it also had a fair bit of rust in the bottom. A little internet searching assured me that this was not such a big problem, so I wiped it out and started loading it up with 10 loaves of bread. (Only 50 more to go until we break even.) And many bags of frozen vegetables.
And I immediately put on a big pot of beans in our slow cooker – the idea being that we’d eat some for one meal and freeze the rest into one-meal sized packages. The first was a batch of lima beans and they were so good. None of them made it to the freezer. (Here Laur nods, sagely…) Currently I have some pinto beans on the go. I expect they too will go the way of the lima beans. (Burp!)
Am I more content? Yes, actually, I am. I had an apartment-sized-freezer hole in my heart.
There is a theory that hankering is better than having. See the study “Wanting Things Makes Us Happier Than Having Them.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-wanting-things-makes-us-happier-than-having-them/267216/
Bah! Whoever wrote that must not hate shopping as much as I do and has never dropped a 10 year old freezer on her foot.
Laur and I don’t eat meat or ice cream anymore, but I do love to cook in bulk. I learned to do this as a volunteer at a frontier school some 30 years ago – and have never looked back.
After we moved from our B & B to our Life Lease Seniors’ Apartment here on Vine St., we now had space for one. The easy thing to do would have been to go to Best Buy or Walmart and buy the cheapest freezer. But that would be too sensical and easy – and wouldn’t make for a very good story, would it? And truthfully, I detest shopping. I was hoping an apartment sized freezer might fall into my lap, sort of. It didn’t.
First, I posted an ad on our building’s community bulletin board that Laur and I were looking for one. Only to learn that half the building was looking for one. (That’s a bit of an exaggeration – but for sure, no one was looking to get rid of the freezer they had.)
Next, I posted an ad on kijiji. No responders – at least at the price I wanted - $75 or less.
My interest ebbed and flowed for a couple of years and then last week it got real. After a family get together was finished we had 18 burgers, 24 buns, two buckets of ice cream, and half a Costco-sized cake to get rid of. And we needed a place to store all that surplus. (We also had buckets of potato salad and coleslaw but they aren’t known to freeze well.)
I found an ad on kijiji – an apartment sized freezer for sixty bucks AND it was only a five minute drive away. Emailing Diana (not her real name) to book a viewing and buying was easy enough. But finding a time that worked for all parties – that was the rub. She worked most nights until 8 pm and my 8 pm is like your 11 pm. Not a great time to pick up a freezer.
Finally, we hit on a time midafternoon that would work for her and her teenage son and for Laur and me. I offered to go get the freezer myself – Laur was not keen on this purchase – but he insisted on helping. It makes me chuckle, all the things I managed to bring into 465 Loach’s Rd without his help. Still, that was then and this is now.
We got to the apartment and could not find Diana’s “buzzer” button. After a few failed attempts at phoning Diana’s son, we finally reached him. He and his friends were going to bring it down for us. So much for taking a look at it first. Ah well. How bad could it be? We must have waited 15 minutes in the lobby for them. We were there long enough for the superintendent to ask if she could help us in anyway…
And then they arrived and I realized why it took three of them 15 minutes. It was one of those older freezers – possibly left behind by the Vikings – but hey, in for a pound, in for a ton. The three lads hoisted the freezer into our van. I paid my $60 and off we went to the grocery store.
En route Laur said to me, “Explain to me again why we need this freezer?” You see, in the meantime, I’d found a happy home for all the leftovers from our family get-together – the Social Activities group at our Life Lease, and they were now in the Activities Committee freezer (and fridge.)
When we got to the grocery store I pointed out how the multi-grain bread we love was on sale for $2.00 (vs. $3.00) and I now had the space to buy several loaves. Laurence pointed out that we could have bought a lot of bread for $60. True, dat, but according to my math all I have to do is buy 60 loaves at this lower price, and we’ve paid for our freezer (if you don’t include the price of electricity which may be somewhat higher on an older freezer.)
But we had a bigger challenge ahead – getting our QuickFrez (yes, that’s the make) from our van into our apartment. Getting it out of the van, not so bad. We kind of dropped it onto a trolley. Getting it off the trolley, and into our kitchen…not so good. I dropped my end on my left foot. My poor big toe is already arthritic – this is not going to help.
The outside of the freezer was quite clean. That made me hopeful about the inside. The inside – well it was clean, but it also had a fair bit of rust in the bottom. A little internet searching assured me that this was not such a big problem, so I wiped it out and started loading it up with 10 loaves of bread. (Only 50 more to go until we break even.) And many bags of frozen vegetables.
And I immediately put on a big pot of beans in our slow cooker – the idea being that we’d eat some for one meal and freeze the rest into one-meal sized packages. The first was a batch of lima beans and they were so good. None of them made it to the freezer. (Here Laur nods, sagely…) Currently I have some pinto beans on the go. I expect they too will go the way of the lima beans. (Burp!)
Am I more content? Yes, actually, I am. I had an apartment-sized-freezer hole in my heart.
There is a theory that hankering is better than having. See the study “Wanting Things Makes Us Happier Than Having Them.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-wanting-things-makes-us-happier-than-having-them/267216/
Bah! Whoever wrote that must not hate shopping as much as I do and has never dropped a 10 year old freezer on her foot.