Way Back Machine

[geminiwench]

There was a time,
there was a place
when I was a young;
it's down a certain path,
will you come with me?

Look beside me,
in the corner.
Do you see it?
A squat, 1950's freezer.
The enameled white kind
with a chrome handle lock
that goes "*click*".
It's about 5 feet tall,
and rumbles.

Handwritten in permanent marker
in block letters
"CAUTION!
DO NOT TOUCH!!
DO NOT OPEN!!
KEEP OUT!"

It's just over there,
quietly grumbling
in a mechanical way.
Right there,
in the lobby.

Vrrrrrrmvrrrrrrmvrrrrrm

Are you interested?

This is a real freezer
that really existed.
It was my mom's favorite joke
of all her favorite jokes.
She owned/ran a dude ranch,
and this freezer lived near the back
of the front lobby,
a few feet away from where people waited
in boring lines to pay
for tremendous horse adventures.

If you were the curious cat sort
who can read warning signs,
but decided
you were excited
you would have been confronted
with my mom's (quite splendid)
collection of rigid, frigid,
posed, decapitated
rattlesnake corpses.

The squeals!
Screams!
As people
JUST
CAN'T
HELP
THEMSELVES
so they
help themselves
then give themselves
away
right away
by squawking and
throwing the door shut.

*thwomp*
*click*

Closed.

My mom would say,
"You didn't let them out, did you?!?"

And the person would be so confused
some could be convinced
to open the door again
and 'check'.

I bet I have a freezer full of dead snakes
lying await somewhere within me
and I'm just waiting
for people
to throw caution to the wind
and get curious.

In fact,
I KNOW I do.

Do you?