Ice packs and taquitos. These are a few of my favorite things. No, totally kidding. Except I’m not kidding about the taquitos. El Monterey taquitos from Costco are freaking delicious. But I’ve always been a taquito-lover, so I’m probably biased. But enough about me. Let’s talk ice.
Ice packs specifically. They are my worst enemy. I have an unnatural distaste for them, believe it or not. Ice packs have an aura of pain surrounding them. Because, let’s get real. No one ever pulls an ice pack from the freezer because their bodies are healthy and working well.
I remember my first experience with an ice pack was Christmas Eve as a youngster. I was playing dinosaurs with myself in the bath tub, transferring a wash cloth (aka my newly-hatched baby dinosaur) in my mouth from one corner of the tub to the other. One thing led to another, and, well, I slipped and bit my lip open with my razor-sharp dinosaur teeth. I just remember seeing lots of blood and…an ice pack.
Back in those days, we had to pack our own ice. We didn’t have these technologically advanced “gel” packs. Mother dearest had to manually scoop the ice into a ziplock bag, and then wrap it in a towel. So there I sat in between my parents, with a bag of cold ice chunks strapped to my swollen face, while they read me the story The Polar Express. Since that evening, with the combination of the ice and the story, ice has never been the same.
Since the dinosaur days, I’ve had continued disastrous experiences with ice packs. When I ran track and cross country, it was more uncommon not to have shaved bags of ice strapped saran wrapped to my shins throughout the day. Far worse was how we had to obtain the ice, because the ice machine was in the boys’ locker room. It was survival of the fittest, and in the dog-eat-dog world that is high school sports, ice goes to those who can afford such a luxury. At my high school, male football players were higher on the social ladder than female cross country runners.
Once, in one of those “what-do-you-wanna-do” moments, some friends suggested that we go “ice-blocking.” I’m not exactly sure which part of riding a bare block of cold, hard, ice, down one of the steepest park hills in the state of Utah sounded like a good idea to me, but as you can imagine, what started as a “fun” night with ice blocks, ended in a “fun” night with ice packs.
What about the icy playground where my tongue got stuck to a swing set pole? Or the icy glacier that caused the Titanic to sink? Yeah.
Now, I sit on the couch at my home in Sandy with an ice pack pressed between my back and a pillow. Sorry that my skin never sees the sun, so when I’m out running for longer than an hour, I get one of the worst sunburns I’ve ever had. Sorry that my sunburned skin melts the ice pack in a matter of minutes, and I wake up to a puddle in my bed.
In conclusion, yes. I prefer my water/lemonade/coke/juice without ice. And no, you can’t talk me into being sensible about the matter. As far as I’m concerned, ice can die a long, hot death, and that’s the cold, hard truth.
