It’s not often you get to witness someone crushed by a giant cola refrigerator. Indeed, you see those little stickers on the sides of vending machines that say “Tipping can result in injury or death” and you kinda shrug it off.
There’s this place near my house, Philly Soft Pretzel Factory, which gives out three free pretzels just for walking through the door. Even if the suckers weren’t free they are still really damn cheap, $1.50 for 3 or $2.50 for 3 and a bottle of cola. Needless to say, my family goes to this place two or three times a week and gets loads of free pretzels. I honestly don’t know how they stay in business.
So I’m in there with my son and his friend John and we load up on pretzels. There’s a girl working, about my age, and a young man in his early twenties. They are staring at this Coke refrigerator, which stands about 7′ tall, and trying to move it from behind the counter to the front of the store. This monstrosity is on wheels but the ceiling above the counter is lower, sort of a bulkhead. They are talking about the best way to tilt the thing. At first, from the side, but I convince them to tip it back-side first, showing them the geometry of the operation would work better in this instance. I offer to help, not once, but twice, both times denied.
Anyhoo, Patrick, my son, and John clamber out to the car and we sit. We can see right into the store. I casually sip from my Coke watching the two employees attempt this operation. I’m thinking “Girls should not be doing this.” No offense ladies, but pound for pound we men are just a lot stronger than you. Not mildly stronger, substantially. Our PC world hates to admit this.
I witness the guy taking the top end as the thing is tilted and I can see he is struggling. The girl is on the bottom end making sure the bottom doesn’t slide out or something. I sip from my Coke and I’m thinking: “That thing is really heavy. That guy can’t do this by himself.” BOOM! It falls but hits the counter. The guy and the girl switch, I presume so she can get a grip on it and so he can lift the other end off the floor. She spreads her legs, her arms grab both corners. And, slowly, ever so slowly, she begins to push it off the counter. I sip from my Coke thinking: “Oooo, this is gonna hurt.” From the backseat of the Element, the kids ask me why I am not helping. “Because they told me not to.”
Then it happens. The girl manages to slide the fridge off the counter and without the counter supporting it the girl folds. The fridge is on top of her. Her knees are in the air, below the fridge. Her ass on the ground. Her arms spread trying to keep the thing off of her. Her head bowed to the side because she can’t keep it upright. The guy, God bless him, tries to run to the other side to get it off of her but the counter is in his way and he can’t do it. I was waiting for this moment.
I fling the car door open, run inside as fast as I can, and lift the fridge off of her. She slides out from under the machine and I lay it on the floor.
Somebody, somewhere, cue Metallica’s Hero of the Day.
It’s only now that I realize that they didn’t empty the damned thing before attempting the operation. When I saw it orginally I had seen the back. Now that I can look in it I can see there are more than 50 sodas inside. I ask the girl why she didn’t empty the fridge. She said that there were not that many sodas. I explain that 50 20oz sodas weigh no less than 62lbs. Add in the fridge, the glass bottles containing the juice drinks, the wire shelving, and the doors and I bet there was over 100 lbs of weight that could have been easily taken out. We begin the process, chucking the sodas out, we pull out the shelving, the doors come off easily. We lift the fridge minus all that stuff easily.
I was really shocked at a couple things. That the young man, after struggling with it, had no idea that a girl would never be able to lift it. Or that the pair of them didn’t empty the fridge. Or that she, after struggling to simply get it off the counter, didn’t know it would crush her. I guess we live and learn. Hopefully we live through it.
In the end she turned out to be the owner, as I guessed because she was in street clothes. She offered me some free snack trays and such. Thanked me a hundred times. Called me a “Guardian Angel.” Not too shabby. I like having my ego stroked.
See you in the trenches,
Tim
Broke 
Sounds like someone will be getting free pretzels for life!
[…] I am going to try to do something interesting again this week. Last week, of course, I saved some woman from being crushed by a refrigerator and won, for my effort, a lifetime supply of pretzels or […]
The increased evidence of stupidity amazes me daily!
How come the owner of the business, who you say is your age, is a “girl”? Are you a “boy?” (Somehow I doubt you apply “boy” to yourself.) And the early-twenties male, who seems to be younger than the female, is a “young man”? Why not a “boy?” (And why isn’t she a “young woman?”)
Let me help you out. The female business owner is a WOMAN!!! You can use the word “woman.” It won’t hurt you. And it shows respect.
[sensing all pointlessness at defending myself…]
Admittedly, I look down on women as a gender. Obviously they are inferior to men. We have big rippling muscles and brains and we are better at mowing the lawn. Women can’t compete. It’s not your fault. You were born that way like midgets or freckled kids or Vanilla Ice.
Here’s a nickel, buy yourself some therapy.