I Could Cryogenically Freeze You If You Wanted Me To
November 14th, 2006
Let me first mention that I have one of those automatic ice-makers in my fridge.
Then let me follow up that statement by telling you that my freezer also holds a myriad of other cold items. There’s Otter Pops, there’s frozen peas, there’s a bunch of South Beach Pizzas in there (Pepperoni and Four Cheese), there’s some chicken breasts and salmon, and if you look really hard you can find a bag of chocolate candy bars.
Which is just a small percentage of the tools I’d use to cryogenically freeze you if you wanted me to.
With technology improving exponentially in leaps and bounds, people’s “What-If” conversations always turn towards the subjects of slowing down the aging process, finding a cure to cancer and learning how to cryogenically freeze people’s bodies. People who have these conversations are operating with the knowledge that freezing people’s full bodies is a technology that has yet to be perfected and is simply the fodder of science-fiction flicks and Walt Disney gossip.
And they’re 110% correct.
But what they don’t know, is that I have spent a lot of time sticking my hand in a bowl of ice and/or sucking on ice cubes for minutes at a time…all the while perfecting my Do-It-Yourself cryogenic freezing techniques in the privacy of my own home. Let me run down some of the big accomplishments thus far:
- Froze grapes, then defrosted them a month later — resulting in STILL JUICY fruit.
- Kept hand in bowl of ice long enough to not feel my hand anymore, then defrosted said hand with at least 85% of the original coordination and motor function from prior to the freezing process.
- Froze tip of tongue on cold outdoor pole, defrosted in luke warm tea with minimal taste-bud destruction.
- Froze chicken breast, kept in freezer box for six months. Defrosted with combination hot-cider/heating pad combination — cooked chicken tasted 50% like chicken, 25% like charcoal, 15% cardboard, and 10% metal. A resounding success!!
- Allowed frost to form on forehead in outdoor field on cold winter morning (45 degrees). Upon introducing heating element to forehead, skin became lustrous and alive!
- Froze pet hamster. Didn’t come back to life…yet.
As you can see, the initial experiments have resulted in some wonderful discoveries. The largest discovery of them all, of course, is that without any funding whatsoever or a corporate giant supporting me from the darkness in my cryogenic research, I have single-handedly perfected the art of cryogenics with a freezer, some ice and the kinds of everyday household objects/foods we all have in our homes.
That’s why I think I could cryogenically freeze you if you wanted me to.
Surprisingly, the cost wouldn’t be as expensive as the crackpot cryogenic labs currently trying to steal your fortunes. All you’d have to do is pay to have me flown to your home, put me up in a two to three-star hotel (as long as they have those in-hall ice dispensers I’m fine) and give me one week in which to prepare for the cryogenic freezing process. You’d also need to fill up your freezer with things like frozen peas, chicken breasts, ice pops, asparagus, strawberries and those blue plastic ice packs that you bring along on picnics. That, and a signed contract releasing me from any liability, and you’ll be close to becoming your own personal ice-cube.
The only drawback, it seems, could be your relatives.
Because as all wannabe-cryogenic freezer-pros know…it’s the relatives that always seem to screw this kind of stuff up. So if you’re planning on taking me up on my offer, please take care of your family ahead of time. Let them know that your true wishes are to be cryogenically frozen, that my experience speaks for itself, and if they have anything to say they’d better keep it to themselves. That’s the only way, it seems, that I could be able to do my job if you wanted me to cryogenically freeze you.
Which I could. If you wanted.
Just let me know.
Is there an option on just freezing my brain? Would that reduce costs? Would you be willing to perform the necessary procedures? I have always wanted to be a living brain in a jar. I’m hoping the future will grant me that gift.
I would also settle for being living testicles in a jar. Living and jar are the main things.
Comment by Pierce — November 14, 2006 @ 8:08 am
I think I’ll wait for the hamster to come back to life.
Thanks anyways.
Comment by Merel — November 14, 2006 @ 8:10 am
Pierce - There you go again, spouting off the usual cryogenic-rhetoric that established scientists want you to spout. Head freezing isn’t smart — you either go all body or no freeze.
Merel - I’ll keep you posted the minute “Sleepy” twitches.
Comment by Pauly D — November 14, 2006 @ 8:14 am
I’m just wondering - was the hamster alive when you froze it? Didn’t you once kill your hamster with Chinese water torture?
Or am I going mad?
Comment by Merel — November 14, 2006 @ 8:22 am
Merel - Your memory serves you well. As a child I accidentally killed my “first hamster” who was named Sleepy by dripping water from his water bottle onto his tail, thus giving him pneumonia and causing him to die. The hamster I froze, although ALSO named Sleepy, was a new hamster I purchased from Petco. He was alive when I froze him and he had such a lively spirit, thus, I expect him to be back to normal once the de-thawing process is completed.
Comment by Pauly D — November 14, 2006 @ 8:32 am
Oh, good. That makes me feel better, both about my memory and about your chances of ever being allowed to Cryogenically freeze me.
Comment by Merel — November 14, 2006 @ 8:33 am
cryogeny refrigerates misanthropy
and many are cold but few are chosen
Comment by Daniel — November 14, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
Pauly!!! Hamsters read blogs! You are so screwed!
Comment by monkeyinabox — November 14, 2006 @ 1:08 pm
many are cold but few are “Frozen”
Hamsters read blogs.. if it’s their pet peeve.
Comment by Daniel — November 14, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
i’ll be impressed when you freeze grapes and they come back alive. until then, i’ll keep working on my liquid nitrogen experiments …
Comment by dgm — November 14, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
I’ll just have one of those frozen candy bars, thanks. Or a grape. Frozen grapes are tasty, too.
Comment by Alison — November 14, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
I hate the cold. Otherwise I’d be all yours.
Comment by brooke — November 14, 2006 @ 3:33 pm
Hmmmm sounds tempting, but first I’d want to know how many exploded frozen diet cokes there have in that freezer of yours. It’s only when you’ve mastered the delicate quick cool down method of a diet coke and not allowing it to freeze and then exploded would I even think about donating my body for freezing.
Ooooohhhh but you do have a stash of frozen chocolate. Sooo tempting.
Comment by christie — November 14, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
The first person I thought of when I read this post was Ted Williams’ son.
Comment by Amy — November 14, 2006 @ 7:58 pm
It scares me that some of you think hamsters read blogs. But it wouldn’t scare me as much as if you thought dead hamsters read blogs. Then I’d really be in trouble.
Comment by Pauly D — November 15, 2006 @ 7:06 am
And you wonder why the squirrels were terrorizing you?
Rodents United Can Never Be Defeated!
Comment by The Hamster Whisperer — November 15, 2006 @ 8:24 am
And you wonder why the squirrels were terrorizing you?
Rodents United Can Never Be Deafeated!
Or, apparently, defrosted.
Yrs truly
The Hamster Whisperer
Comment by cinekat — November 15, 2006 @ 8:26 am
You had me at Otter Pops…
Comment by The Centaur — November 16, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
I think I’m allergic to cider. Do you have a defrosting alternative? Also, where is the freezer in which I would be stored? I don’t have one of those fancy deep freezers. Just the one at the top of my fridge. I am a slender girl but I don’t think I would fit in there. Even if I did, there wouldn’t be room for me, and the huge box of italian ice that my family just adores on a hot summers evening.
Comment by jacquie — November 27, 2006 @ 6:27 am