There is a beast in the bookstore. I had a suspicion it was a threat to my well-being when I first encountered it. It’s a 300-pounder.
As those of you who have been following the progress know, the logistics of covering all the bistro bases has been lengthy. Believe me, no one wants it up and running more than I do. On the other hand – I love my job, the new location, and the relative lack of stress I experience now compared to my previous occupations. The last thing I want to do is stress out over a self-imposed deadline. Right now, the food experience is limited to carry-out at lunchtime while I work toward table service.
Having the beast in here will help in that regard.
I’ve been searching for a qualified ice dispenser for some time. Foodies will recall that restaurants are required to have commercial-grade equipment. That ruled out my keeping ice in a Styrofoam cooler. And as ice tends to melt and stick to itself in shapes that sometimes won’t fit in a drinking glass, I was looking for something that would break up the ice as well as drop it into a cup.
Thus, the beast.
It was a Craigslist offering by a Tulsa law firm. They had never used it, and I never did get a solid reason as to why it was in the corner of an associate’s office. For three years, she said. The picture with the online ad had no real reference point as to its size, but when I visited it in person it was much, much bigger than I had anticipated.
We plugged it in and the ice-mover kicked into action, dispensing all sorts of invisible ice. Perfect.
Leaning into it, I gave the upper edge a shove with my palms. It didn’t budge. Not a bit.
I figured I didn’t have the angle on it, and tried again. Still it would not be moved or tipped in the slightest. It was clear to me I wouldn’t be hauling it out that Saturday morning. The attorney asked her son if he thought it would fit in the back of his Jeep, and the son, enjoying the optimism that goes along with being eighteen years old, said “Sure.”
That sort of blind hopefulness escaped me years ago. I told him I thought maybe HE might be able to move it, but that I wouldn’t be of any help. Without a hand-truck or a furniture dolly, even dragging it into the hallway would have been a major chore.
An appointment was made for the following weekend, at which point I fully intended to have a football team’s worth of young men to help me tame the beast. There was no muscle-bound crowd, though, come Saturday morning. It turned out to be my wife and me. Fabiola is not big, but she doesn’t back down from a challenge.
Naturally, after a summer-long drought, it was raining as we pulled into the parking lot. Once out of the rain and in the office, my wife and I teamed up on the machine and between the two of us, we got the beast tipped to the side enough to roll the wheels underneath. Barely fit through the office door. The long hallway was a rolling cinch. There was some reluctance on the part of the beast when it came time to actually leave the building. It grabbed the rubber floor mat with some sort of teeth I hadn’t noticed earlier. It hung on while we grappled with it. Finally, it gave in.
Out in the rain, in front of the hulking stainless steel and plastic, my apprehension quickly settled in. The attorney took charge, fortunately. She pointed out that the weight was at the back edge and set a method of attack. Fab and I grabbed at our assigned corners, and we all lifted. There was no stopping to think about it first, and that was a good thing.
Somehow, the three of us managed to raise it to the height of the truck’s tailgate. It could have been adrenaline. After shoving it forward far enough to close the gate, we thanked the attorney, and drove off.
Sitting down, driving away, my head cleared enough to realize that she and I would never be able to lower the beast back down again.
Needless to say, we concocted a plan and it might have worked. The task was completed much easier with the aid of a kind gentleman who saw our struggle and offered help.
Still, the job isn’t done. The beast is in its new home, but needs a bath. There is extra work associated with almost every project.
I’ve got the comet and Clorox in hand. The beast is before me.
