My father liked to watch movies. He watched a lot of them on television when I was growing up. I would sit around and half pay attention but not really.

He was watching The Iceman Cometh on TV, and I wanted to know all about it. I was five or six, and I didn't want to watch the film -- I just liked asking questions.

"What's it about?"

"Is it fun?"

"What's going on?"

"Why is the sky up?"

"Is this a good movie?"

I was shocked, I tell you SHOCKED, that he didn't answer all my questions right the fuck away. Eventually though, with a sigh, he told me that the movie was about a caveman who was frozen and comes back to life and kills some people.

Now, according to imdb.com The Iceman Cometh breaks down like this:

It's 1912 and the patron's [sic] of 'The Last Chance Saloon' have gathered for their evening of whiskey to contemplate their lost faith and dreams, when Hickey (Lee Marvin) arrives. Hickey is out to convince everyone that he can help them all find peace of mind by ridding them of the foolish dreams and by bringing them back to reality. Hickey is working especially hard on Larry Slade (Robert Ryan) a former anarchist who has lost his will for life and is awaiting the eventuality of death. Larry is not affected by the cajolings of Hickey but his young companion Parritt (Jeff Bridges) is strangely affected and this leads to revelations about his own mother and feelings of betrayal and loss. As the night wears on the mood changes as everyone has the their faith and dreams slowly destroyed by Hickey. As the anger builds everyone turns on Hickey about his wife and the iceman. This leads to more revelations and with Hickey having the faint questioning of his own new found convictions.

So yeah, my father was fucking with me. Still it stuck with me, his story. In fact it messed me up pretty bad. I became convinced, utterly convinced, that I shouldn't open the freezer. In my mind, you have to understand that this made perfect sense to me at the time, inside the freezer there was a caveman, and if I opened it up, he would wake up and kill me.

Was he a tiny caveman? Did he eat frozen peas? Where was he before this? Why didn't he escape when anyone else opened the freeze?

I do not know the answers to these questions.

I can only tell you that I was terrified to open the freezer. Which sucked because I had a pair of those gloves. You remember the gloves that turned different colors and shit when it was really cold? Those gloves. And I had a pair of them, but it was a warmish winter in NY so, I kept them in the freezer sometimes so at least I could see them turn colors. It was cold enough for gloves but not cold enough for them to turn.

So I would put them in the freezer and pull them out when I went outside and at least I could watch the special colors fade.

Except with a killer miniature caveman in the freezer I couldn't get my gloves. Nor could I ask for help, because I knew that they wouldn't believe me about the whole caveman thing. So I spend a week or so going out with very cold hands. My mother asked where my gloves were, and I would tell her the truth. She wanted to know why they were in the freezer not on my hands, and I would shrug and act like I had been dropped on the head a few too many times.

Because what alternative did I have? So I did what I had to do to survive. You would've done the same.

Flash forward a week or so, and I simply had to get my gloves. I missed them. My hands were cold. So I flung open the freezer and cringed.

And nothing happened.

Well, I mean the door gave a squeak and a blast of cold air rolled out. Some tater tots shifted. But nothing major happened. Nothing, you understand, involving cavemen went down at all.

So I grabbed my gloves, slammed the door and never put them in the freezer again. Just because I was safe once didn't mean my caveman luck would hold out. Duh?

I still don't fully trust freezers, for the record. Nor should you.