Standard Mischief

Dry Ice.

When I was driving across country, I remember seeing dry ice for sale at say a Wal-Mart in the middle of Nowhere, Montana. I figured that if you drove 60 miles to stock up on food, it would be worth it to buy a chunk of dry ice to make sure your ice cream stayed frozen until you got back.

A few years after that, I started seeing it for sale around here. I mean, it’s always been available, but you’ve always had to go to some special store somewhere out of the way, with odd hours and pay twice as much.

Anyway, it was surreal to be in the midst of a crowd of people, carts all overflowing with perishable goodies in advance of a big storm, and I was the only one buying dry ice. What is the logic behind stocking up the fridge in anticipation of a big storm that might limit your mobility and cut your utilities for a few days?

In any event, I had the “12 items or less” checkout lane virtually to myself.

Three slabs of dry ice were wrapped in newspaper, placed in a soft sided lunch size cooler, which was placed in another larger cooler and padded all around with foam and towels. This worked very well, as I’d estimate from the initial 17 pound purchase shrunk less than a pound per day.

Instructions on the bag directed me to not put the dry ice directly in a working fridge. I put the cooler in the garage, figuring any liberated carbon dioxide would sink to the lowest level, and if needed I could always open the garage door to refresh the oxygen. I never needed to, but it’s something to think about if you store the stuff in an airtight area also used as living space