I Was on Ice Duty. Never Again.

Dee Harper, 63

Semi-retired librarian, full-time organiser of everyone else, now officially off ice duty.

6 min read

A woman walking down a hallway carrying a tea-towel-wrapped ice pack and a mug — Down the hall, ice pack in one hand, tea in the other. The tea was always cold by the time I sat down.

The duty roster nobody wrote down

In our house there is a job that never appeared on any roster but existed all the same. I called it ice duty. Every evening after Barry's round of golf, the same sequence: to the freezer, crack the tray, load the zip-lock, wrap it in the good tea towel I kept asking everyone not to use, carry it to the couch, position it just so. Then, precisely as I sat back down with my tea, the call would come. It has slipped.

Forty minutes later, do it all again. Barry loves his evening ice, and I love Barry, so ice duty I went, night after night. He offered once, over a decade ago. He put the bag on the couch arm instead of his knee and fell asleep, and by morning the cushion had a tide mark.

A woman at an open freezer at night swapping a blue gel pack, a tea towel over her shoulder — Swap number two of the night. The tea towel lived on my shoulder.

What finally gave out

It was not my temper, it was my shoulder. Not his, mine. The endless fetch-and-carry, tray, towel, zip-lock, couch. One evening I stood in the kitchen holding a leaking bag and had the strangest, clearest thought: I have been a librarian, a mother, a wedding coordinator for both our daughters. I have managed whole institutions. And I am spending the back half of my sixties fetching ice.

A fortnight later at bridge, Maureen announced she had been liberated. Her husband now ran his own icing. I made her write down the details on the back of a scoresheet.

I retired from a lot of things these past few years. Ice duty was the most satisfying resignation of the lot.

What Maureen handed over

It is a compact cooler with a small pump in the lid and a hose that clips to a cloth cuff. Fill it with water and a couple of frozen silicone trays, strap the cuff where it is wanted, press go. The cold water loops through the cuff while he watches the news. Gravity-fed or plugged in, Maureen's husband runs his on the bench next to his chair.

The part I care about: he does all of it. He fills it in the afternoon before his tea. He straps his own cuff. When he is finished he drapes the cuff over the laundry tap. My evening involvement is now confined to saying, that looks pleasant, from my own chair on my own side of the room.

I am told it is like having a little aquarium pump in the corner. Maureen says she finds the gentle hum companionable. I say it is the sound of a job leaving the house.

The purchase

She had bought hers from a family-run Australian business, and when I looked them up the same kit was there: the Cryo Therapy Machine, cooler, pump, hose and one cuff in the box. $499.95. Barry was consulted strictly as a formality. I informed him we had an announcement, and the announcement was the order confirmation.

“a godsend for both me as the patient and my wife for looking after me”

One customer wrote

Cryo Therapy Machine (with one cuff)

$499.95

Cooler, pump, hose and one cuff in the box, everything he needs to run it himself.

See it at Cryo Remedy

Our evenings now

Barry does his ice. I do my tea. We have achieved, after many years, a working separation of powers. He is quietly proud of managing it himself and I have stopped keeping count of who fetched what, because the answer is nobody, it just works.

There is a shelf in the freezer now with nothing on it. First time in decades. I am considering putting something frivolous there.

A woman relaxing on a back verandah with a mug of tea, a gum tree and a sleeping dog behind her — My verandah, my tea, my evening.

Cryo Therapy Machine (with one cuff)$499.95