I grew up without an ice-maker. That is, I was the ice-maker, the "fresh-maker" if you will (oh, the abuse!). Our refrigerator was, what I referred to as, a bi-level, with a rectangle of a freezer on top, and a fridge with a separate handle below. Some of my neighbors had bi-level babies where the freezer was on the bottom. This made more sense to me, given that those frozen meats and things were indeed heavy, so the freezer belonged at the bottom. Except my neighbor Janene had a freezer at the bottom, and she dipped her pretzels in apple juice, which made her weird, and by extension, her freezer weird. 

Ice in our house consisted of two stackable trays that, once cracked, would be refilled with water. Balance and a steady hand, then back into the freezer. Then, you wait. You know how it goes.

Some of my friends had those black fancy fridges that split vertically, and opened like walk-in closets. "Side by sides" people call them. And one of the doors had an area that LIT UP and would hold your glass, filling it with your choice of water or ice! I believe they’re called "dispensers." It seemed too good to be true. Certainly the ice had to taste like a yellow grandmother or like licking a dishwasher or a Ziplock bag.

Now fast forward to today, where I can say with some clarity: we’re idiots. Idiots with a Viking Professional refrigerator that suddenly started making ice yesterday.

When we moved into this house, we thought it was strange that our freezer didn’t make ice. "It’s not strange at all," I said. "Its a professional refrigerator/freezer number, which means that professionals would have a separate ice machine beside their deep freezer." Strange or not, it was annoying. Here we have this stainless steel "professional" freezer that fits nothing in it, and add insult to injury, when mama wants a little clink-clink in her glass, she’s not gonna get it unless she lugs a ten pound bag of ice home with her. But hey, I’m a big person. I’d make due.

There even came a point where, while at Spec’s, loading up on our adult beverages of choice, namely our Clairette de Die, I purchased an ice pick. And then when things got damn hot in Texas, we decided to invest in a compact little number: an ice machine that produces pellets of ice. Of course, this whole time, we’ve had to make room in our vertical freezer for the ten pound bag of ice or the mini ziplocks full of pellets. UNTIL… last night, when I realized, holy crap, a drawer in our freezer, when not filled with frozen mini pork buns, actually makes ice. A manual would be nice right about now.