I have a dream that is likely never to come true. It’s an impossible dream that one day I would be able to take a handful of ice cubes from the refrigerator without having at least one escape and go sliding across the kitchen floor.
Yesterday, it almost came true. I only dropped one cube. Our refrigerator has an internal automatic ice maker, and it works to perfection, keeping our ice tray filled to the brim. But you must open the freezer door to get to the cubes and then they make their escape.
The other refrigerators with the ice dispensers on the outside are worse. Put your glass beneath the place where ice supposedly comes out and nothing happens. It makes a gentle “humm,” like it knows you want ice, but it’s not ready to concede. Then you push your glass a little harder against the release and enough ice to cool all the drinks at Yankee Stadium during an August day game rushes from the dispenser and scatters everywhere.
You would think, however, that if you were careful, you could gently retrieve 8 or 10 ice cubes without a disaster. I think maybe it’s the way the finished cubes are designed. They are sleek and slithery, and built for escape. They are like little, frozen snakes.
I have thought about giving up cold drinks entirely. I guess I couple drink a room temperature glass of tea or a good bourbon and ginger ale, but I must pursue my dream – the impossible dream of getting ice from the freezer without dropping a single cube.