Freezer burn

(my cell phone chirps)

“Hello.”

“Rog, Gord; do you have a freezer?”

Let’s pause for a moment. Granted men aren’t much for small talk but opening with, “do you have a freezer?” gets one to thinking:

• He has a freezer to sell or
• Worse, he has a freezer to store or
• He wants to cram something into my freezer, but:
  • He didn’t check that, if I had a freezer, there was room for the side of beef he won in a lottery and
  • He’s a snowbird in Florida

Well, my puzzlement was soon answered once I gave a positive response.

“Great, I want you to go to the golf club and pick up some meat.”

Typical request one gets nowadays; back came the puzzlement.

It seems that private golf clubs impose a quarterly minimum charge for food and drinks which is normally not an issue if you happen to be within driving range (pun intended) of the golf course.

During the golf season, you eat up that charge easily after a game and/or a dinner or two but when you’re golfing in Florida in the off season, the golf club in Toronto just can’t accommodate you easily, if at all – you have to get your buns to the club for that hot dog.

But, here’s the killer, the irretrievable ball in the water, if you will; they charge you for what you don’t eat. A banker would call it credit float; a golf member calls it extortion.

But Gord, ever the calculating one, confirmed that if he indeed picked up the food, food he’s basically paid for, it would be covered by his quarterly minimum. Clever. Really clever when he doesn’t have to pick it up.

Flash forward a month: it’s in the middle of an Ontario February, a February that sensitive Canadians in Florida celebrate by turning up the air conditioning and turning on the international weather channel. Gord has my visit set up and I’m to make my way to the golf course to pick up his frozen food on such and such a date. And we’re not talking Kraft Dinner, dear reader, Gord wouldn’t entrust racks of lamb and steaks to just anybody. Well, anybody with a freezer.

Putting four sets of chains on my 4 x 4 and taking out a CAA¹Canadian Automobile Association one day membership, I venture forth. “Who, besides a friend with a freezer, would be out in a record setting blizzard?” I ask myself wondering why the heater has just stopped working. Well, shiver me timbers, it seems there are a lot of people out, a lot of people who had obviously set their GPSes to find the golf club’s parking lot.

I’m now snow-shoeing without snow shoes from the last parking spot at the back of the lot to the clubhouse. As I look back to try to remember where I parked, my ‘tank’ is slowly disappearing from view under a blanket of snow.

“Hi, I’m a friend of Gord’s who asked me to pick up some meat for him.”

The maître d’ eyes me incredulously, “You came out on a night like tonight for a friend. What silly bet did you lose?”

“Well,” trying to justify my presence and clapping the snow off my mittens while noting that I’m not wearing boots, “it seems I’m not the only friend to come out tonight, the parking lot’s full. What happened?”

“Ah,” came the all-knowing smile, “they’re members, you’re the only friend.”

“And why,” I stupidly ask, “are they here?”

“End of the month,” the fitted jacket with the name tag Pierre replied.

“Pierre,” I rolled off my tongue and into two syllables, suspecting that everyone knew him as Pete,”I still don’t understand.”

My eyes moved slowly upward focusing on the cartoon balloon forming over Pierre’s head that said, “Ah, those unfortunate to appreciate the finer things in life, how droll, I’ll humour him, he could become a member, dread the thought, just the type to call me ‘Pete’.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Rogé,” I pronounced suavely, two can play this game.

Mystified, Pierre continued, “You see, there’s a quarterly charge for hospitality and if, you unfortunately don’t, how shall I put it, hospitalityize, you can’t roll over those charges.”

“You’re out the money,” I summarized not correcting his spelling.

“Exac – te- ment,” warmed Pierre, getting into the swing of things and thankful, for once I’m sure, to meet one of his own.

“Well, Pierre, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, is the order ready?”

“Let me check,” and Pierre disappeared behind the swinging doors into the kitchen which gave me the chance to look around the room and survey the members who looked like they were questioning their sanity and mentally revising the cost of a round of golf upward.

Not a smile did I see nor any lobster nor glasses pairing it with Dom Perignon. You got the impression that they didn’t want to overshoot their credit balance. Ah well, nice to know that those in the heady financial bracket who get to enjoy a private game of golf now and then probably got there in part by counting their pennies.

“Voilà,” announced Pierre, re-entering and off-loading a large, heavily laden brown paper bag onto my braced arms. “Et, bon appetit.”  

“Thanks, Pierre, but it’s not for me. I’m just doing Gord a favour.”

“Ah well then, knowing Mr. Gordon as I do, he’ll probably want to share it with you,” waved Pierre, punctuating it with a Gallic wink.

Or was that a wink-wink ²Nudge-nudge understood?