Maytag Freezers: Freezing Food. Freezing Time.

Fox News was on, but my grandma wanted to take a break from it (weird, I know) and use my help to defrost the downstairs freezer. Both of my grandparents take pride in having owned this freezer for the past 40 years or so. This thing is a beast, but over time ice will build up on the inside walls and my grandma has to clean out all this ice. I am helping her do this.

To get this ice melted we have to take out all of the food inside and put pans of hot water on the shelves. The system works flawlessly, I must say. Grandma win. But you probably already know that this story is not about the freezer but what I found IN the freezer.

I think that many grandparents do this same thing. They'll buy groceries in bulk, freeze what they don't want to eat right away... and forget that it exists the next day.

As I'm pulling things out, I'm noticing that there is a lot of frozen meat. Naturally I'm checking the date on every single one of them. Nothing terrible so far. There must have been a good sale on steak in 2007... abundance. When I am nearing the bottom shelf my grandma tells me she usually doesn't do that shelf because she is always so worn out by the time she gets through the top three shelves. After she said this, I knew there was going to be some good stuff down here.

At first glance, it's not bad, just some frozen vegetables with the previous Hy-Vee label. After that first layer, though, I noticed that the ice had started forming AROUND the bags of food.

After chipping away at the ice, I'm pulling more and more food out. Stuck in the back corner, frozen to the shelf, is a cut of beef. I grab it, pull, and some of the paper wrapping tears off to stay on the shelf. As I turn to put it in the basket with the rest of the frozen food I notice that the Hy-Vee logo on the wrapping is definitely not the current one.

This next part played out like a movie. Of course, this bitch is freezer burned and I am brushing off ice revealing text. I slide my thumb over the top part of the label to reveal:

FREEZE OR SELL BY DECEMBER 23, 1992.

This beef is almost 20 years old! My youngest sister has been alive two months longer than it has been frozen. We could also say that since it has been frozen in the freezer this long, the actual beef is older than 20 years.

I keep my composure, place it in the basket, and clear out the ice.

I don't know what's worse though... the fact that it has been in there for that long, or the fact that I put it BACK in the freezer and didn't say anything to my grandma. I had the advantage though and was able to bury it down deep in the bowels of the freezer. I don't think we'll be seeing it anytime soon, at least not for another 20 years.

My grandma was very pleased with my defrosting work and was surprised that it didn't take longer. Happy that the freezer was defrosted, she went back upstairs... after all, Fox News was on.