Did you ever see a frozen chicken getting out of its meat market wrapper? They will ooze their way right out of there if the deep freeze goes out a few days before being discovered.

A six person team of U. M. Army missions projects arrived at our place this morning ready to go to work. When they reported one of my extension cords wouldn't work, a thrown breaker in the garage was found. Listening to verify the deep freeze was running, the hum was reassuring. The perfume filling the air was that of a dead rat. The loud buzz of swarming flies was disconcerting but the source wasn't determined.

Opening the garage doors allowed a breeze that chased the dead rat smell away but there was something else. The deep freeze was humming but the contents had been thawed for an unknown period of time. The best we could determine was that maybe a lightning strike had tripped the breaker earlier in the week.

Two chickens had "flowed" out of their packages and the leg of one of them sort of crawled off the shelf and splattered in the door opening.

It was easy to agree with the advice the instructor of our adjustor class when discussing insurance claims, "Anytime anyone claims they lost a freezer full of sirloins because of a power outage, take their word for it. NEVER open a freezer to verify the loss."

Grandma Rusty decided, "The next freezer we get will be in the house where I can keep a better eye on it."

After an odoriferous evening, we agreed that if this is the closest we ever come to cleaning up after a hurricane we'd be well blessed.

The "afterglow" of all this is that my office is ABOVE the garage. Hopefully, it'll be bearable in here in a few days.