Deep Freeze

Imagine if you will (nod to Rod Serling) a huge empty kitchen like the one in Jurassic Park. A few years ago I cooked my toffee in just such a kitchen.  It was a commissary kitchen that was used by about 8 different vendors.  Mostly they were caterers. One of them was a wedding cake artist.  Because there were so many different people using the kitchen on every day of the week except Sundays, I used it on Sundays.  I would go with my crew early on Sunday mornings and we would have the kitchen to ourselves. There were other people in the building on Sundays however and although we could hear them quite well, we only saw one or two of them briefly when they came into the kitchen at some point of the day to get ice.  My landlord rented a conference room on the far side of the building to a black church.  They were a very lively and devoted group of people and the only trouble I had with them was the volume of their worship.  They drowned out the sound of my radio and I worried regularly for the voice of their minister.  I could not understand how he could possibly speak after hours spent each Sunday shouting to the heavens.  But each week he was back in fine voice and was joined in exaltation by scores of other enthusiastic worshipers.

One Sunday in December 2004, I went to the kitchen by myself.  I had a lot of toffee already cooked and waiting to be wrapped in the freezer of the wedding cake lady.  I worked for a couple of hours in eerie quiet.  I found it strange to not hear the church folks.  And to be the only person in that huge building.  I couldn’t imagine why church wasn’t happening that day but I was certainly enjoying the silence.

I knew that the door to the freezer was not working properly so I made sure to place something in front it each time I went in to retrieve more toffee.  Unluckily and unwisely I used a large bin of sugar on wheels to hold the door. Oops!  Just as I got to the far end of the freezer, a movement caught my eye and I turned in time to see the door closing.  I leapt across the freezer and put my hand on the door just as it clicked shut.  That was the single most terrifying moment of my life.  (And I’ve had more than my fair share of those).  Just sitting here writing about it almost 6 years later, that feeling of pure dread comes flooding back.  I was trapped. I was alone.  And no one would miss me for a long time.  How long does it take to freeze to death?  I don’t know.  It was -15º F in there.  Fortunately, I had not taken off my hooded sweatshirt as I had been contemplating.  Unfortunately, I left my cell phone on the table in the kitchen.  After a few moments of pure panic my brain started working. I climbed up on the shelves to see about pulling the wires out of the freezer motor.  I didn’t know if that might cause the air to stop flowing into the freezer which would result in my suffocation.  Would I rather suffocate or freeze to death?  I couldn’t decide so I put off making that decision for a while.  I figured that I wasn’t in imminent danger of either one happening for at least a few hours and if I pulled out those wires and then got saved, it would probably be really expensive to repair.

When I thought about it later, I found very interesting the things I was thinking about while in there assuming that I might not get out in time:  “Oh geez, Ian (my son) is going to graduate from college in a couple of weeks.  This is going to be really terrible for him!”  “Christmas is only 3 weeks away.  How awful for the family!  This will ruin their Christmases for life”  “How long will it be before my family misses me and comes looking?”  “I sure wish I had bought that life insurance policy for the car I just bought.  My family would get a new car.”  “Poor, Lisa (the wedding cake lady).  This freezer is filled with wedding cakes and she’s going to have to remake them because who’s going to want to have a wedding cake that was in the freezer with a dead person.”  “Damn, there’s not even a pencil in here to write a note of apology for my stupidity to my family.”  “My granddaughters are going to grow up without their Grancy.  Too bad, they would have learned so much from me.” “Why was there no church today?” “Stop calling for help.  There’s no one to hear you and the sound of panic in your voice is making you even more scared.”

I told myself that maybe I made a mistake about there being no church that day.  Could I possibly have become so accustomed to the noise from the congregation that I no longer heard it?  I couldn’t quite believe that was possible but I grabbed on to that glimmer of hope and held on tight.  The one thing I did remember about those folks from Sundays past is that at some point on every Sunday, someone from that congregation would come into the kitchen and walk all the way through it to get ice from the ice machine located right outside the freezer in which I was trapped.  I also knew that if in fact I was wrong about there being no church that day; I would have maybe a one minute window of opportunity to get their attention while they were so briefly in the kitchen.  So I pounded.  First with my fists, then my feet, then my butt, then I found a can and used that, then back to my fists, feet, butt, feet, can, feet.  For close to 2 hours.  Suddenly the door opened and there stood a very surprised little old man.  I just jumped on the poor fellow.  He then led me back into his church and as I stood there shivering; he told the congregation what had happened.  There were loud shouts of “Hallelujah.” “Praise God. “ “A miracle has occurred.”  And the expected admonition, “That’s what you get for working on the Sabbath.”  I learned later that the fellow who released my from my icy crypt almost quickly left the kitchen when he heard the pounding.  He thought the freezer was broken and getting ready to explode or something.  As he was hastening away, something told him to stop and go back.  I think a miracle did occur.

I can tell you, it was very hard for me to ever go back into that kitchen.  It always had a real Stephen King feel to it after that and had it not been for my daughter, Aimée, that would have been the end of Lone Cone Toffee.  She convinced me that I had to just suck it up and keep on or I would never accomplish what I set out to do with this business.  So I did.  I don’t use that kitchen anymore and Lone Cone Toffee is approaching the goals I set for it.  My grandchildren call me Grancy.  Ever since that day, their father calls me Grancypop.  Cute, huh?