Maybe there is something to global warming, today we ran out of ice in Antarctica. At first I thought my boss was sending me on a Snipe Hunt when she said, “We need you to find some ice.” But she was telling the truth. I immediately regretted saying, “How about opening the fucking door?”
In what might seem like the least used piece of equipment in Antarctica, there are actually several ice machines scattered throughout McMurdo Station. Each of the bars has an ice machine to keep our cocktails cold, there are ice machines in the dorms and the kitchen has one, too. Or, for the time being, the kitchen had one, too. The guy who I always equated with being the Maytag Repairman of McMurdo because he seemed to have the easiest job in Antarctica as the “Refrigerator Repairman,” was actually busy today. The impossible task he must master: How to make ice in Antarctica.
As he was busy trying to figure out this Gordian Knot of complexity, I was given two five gallon buckets and told to return with ice. At first I suggested just filling up the buckets with water, setting them outside and waiting 30 minutes, but the cooks were not impressed with this college-boy type ingenuity. It was almost like I was suggesting I could also turn water into wine just by placing it on the Galley’s back deck.
“We don’t need Bill Nye the Science Guy,” one of them said. “We need ice.”
I grabbed my coat, gloves, boots, hat, facemask, goggles and two five gallon buckets and went on the hunt for ice. I’m kind of a rookie down here and to me it seemed like ice was everywhere. There was ice on the road and ice on the building. I slipped on ice looking for ice and ice was running through my veins as I looked for ice.
The bars aren’t open during the daytime so I could not order ice on the rocks at one of our two bars—Gallagher’s or Southern Exposure. I saw someone leaving one of the Uppercase Dorms and I asked them, “Do you know where I can get ice?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I don’t know?” I said, “My boss wants ice?”
“You know you’re in Antarctica. Ice is everywhere.”
“Listen,” I said through the muffle of my mask. “I don’t need a lesson in irony, I just need ice.”
“Have you ever noticed that when the New Zealanders talk about ice it sounds like they’re saying ‘ass.’ I went to a science lecture and one of the New Zealand scientists is studying the Ice Cracks of Antarctica. That was a funny lecture.”
“Yeah, I was at that lecture and noticed the same thing. I felt like asking him, ‘When you drill in the ass, how big is the hole?’”
Then we just stood on the deck of this dorm. I could see Mt. Discovery covered in snow and ice across the frozen ocean. We were the only two people or living creatures I could see outside. It hurt to breathe. As a dishwasher this was the first time in my job where I was sent on a task that took me outside. I came to Antarctica for an experience and I’m an experienced dishwasher. I came; I saw; I cleaned.
“In this building, down the hall and on the right there is an ice machine,” he said.
I returned to the Galley like a conquering hero of Antarctica. I found ice.
