The other night - during the big thunderstorm, we judged the extension cord that we had hanging out the window connected to the outside freezer (the only freezer - in case you were mistakenly thinking we had lots) was probably a bad idea.
“Is there anything in it?” I asked M anxiously, visualising another brother that I had yet to discover shivering in its depths.
“Nah, it’s empty,” said M, blithely.
Just then, some rain must have hit the cord, because the safety switch clicked on and all the powerpoints went out. That was the decider. The freezer stayed off.
Two days later I notice Mow vigiling outside the fridge. Poor little thing - it’s getting humid up here and I thought he was just trying to get cool. Then I noticed the smell. Oh god. As the weather got hotter, it got worse. Even Mow stopped his vigil.
It doesn’t help that the freezer is right outside the Spare Bedroom - currently occupied by Small Brother (also known as ‘Pathboy’ for the path he just made out the front) who has come for an idyllic retreat, but has ended up painting the shed, helping build the laundry, making a path, eating a tonne of pesto and putting up with M’s jokes. His physique has also come under serious risk due to our excessive pasta consumption. So. The rotting bait smell he does not need.
Last night we plugged in the freezer in desperation. It shorted out the house again. I started thinking that maybe the person who said it was ‘empty’ should possibly deal with it, but stayed quiet and donated Small Brother my White Musk Body Shop candle.

This morning I decided to tackle it. Surely if I just didn’t breathe through my nose, I wouldn’t know if it was stinky or not, and would then just be able to secure whatever it was in several plastic bags and put it in the bin. Scrubbed and gloved I approached the freezer, which looked malevolent in the way that only badly treated whitegoods can. I opened the door and reeled back, gloves in the air. A cloud of flies buzzed jubilantly,thrilled. It was not bait. It was a whole bag of fish heads - which are, I suppose, actually bait, because they go in the crab traps, but still - there’s a vast difference between an ‘empty’ freezer, and one filled with FISH HEADS. I ran screaming inwardly around the circumference of the house until I found evil M. The male mind, as I may have noted once before, works in oblique and mysterious ways. Apparently by pointing out his error (mistakenly saying ‘empty’ instead of ‘malodorously revolting fish heads’) I offended him - making it impossible for him to retreat gracefully .

B: [reeling from the horror] M! M! You have to help me. The freezer is SO not empty. There is a Whole. Bag. Of. Fish. HEADS. in it. It’s horrible.
M: [assuming unassailable expression] So?
B: So? So? So we have to get rid of them. It’s disgusting - and it’s stinking out the Spare Bedroom. Ugh.
M: [shrugs, and looks more and more like Gary Cooper - nothing is going to bother him, ever again.] We can’t open it, it will stink the house out.
B: [opens mouth to point out that house already smells like a three day old corpse, and shuts it again. waits.]
M: [speaking slowly to explain to B, the small ignorant child] We’ll have to move it elsewhere, then empty it out…
B: [nods acquiescently and stumps back up the stairs, marvelling that at no time did M ever say sorry for being wrong and mistaking ‘malodorously revolting fish heads’ for a shiny empty freezer]