Skankle Ice

The first day we were all at the lake I was hanging on the dock tossing out a line in a vain attempt to catch something... a Perch, anything. Sure, I could have gone up to the garage and retrieved the minnow trap, that's good bait right there. But actually, just casting was relaxing enough.

I turned around for no reason to discover my sister in-law Lisa kneeling on the beach pushing sand around. Scratching my head I thought, Okay, so this is her first trip to the lake and maybe playing with decaying crayfish and other unidentifiable dead lake creatures is her idea of fun. Certainly not ours... but hey, who am I to judge?

Turns out she had fallen off the dock and twisted her ankle. Thoroughly embarrassed, she was trying to cover up her clumsiness by pretending to make a sand castle while praying that the mind splitting pain would go away. I went to her aid and suggested icing it (as I recall, ice only works in the first 24 hours) but tough broad that she is, she refused. Sho'nuf, her ankle swelled up something fierce. It didn't look good. No skiing, no tubing, no anything really. First Day at the Lake Bum-ah! But hey.. we've got a spotter!

So a few nights later, us kids (yeah well, we're not kids anymore - we are now officially "the middle generation" ... the kids had been put to bed) are all sitting around the picnic table getting drunk, being way too loud and having a rip snortin' time. Everyone else has switched to wine or beer except me. Me and my trusty Vitamin V.

The missus brings me a fresh Vodka when my sister Bry asks her where she got the ice (unbeknownst to me, I guess we had run out of ice earlier in the evening). To which my lovely wife replies "That Ziplock bag in the freezer... why?"

Though the tears of drunken laughter, I learn that at some point my sister was able to convince Lisa to ice her ankle but in a trademark clever move to preserve what little ice we had left (the closest store is 5 miles to town), she had used the old nasty skanky ice trays that possessed a distinct musty dusty moldy smell and haven't been touched in years. And that Ziplock bag in the freezer was full of it.

Skankle Ice. In my cocktail. And probably several cocktails before it, as I was the only one using ice and I don't ever really remember running "out" of it, but then I don't remember many intricate details of that particular evening.

The Missus, in a fit of disgust, grabs my cocktail and quickly tosses it over her shoulder. I, in turn, find this a gross waste of perfectly good vodka and without a word proceed to toss her glass of white wine (sans ice) over my shoulder.

Me: "If you'll excuse me, I'm off to fix another drink. Can I get anyone anything?"

There was a resounding "No!"

Pussies.