Friday, July 11, 2003
hide and seek
Can y’all help me out with some context for the camo freezers? I’m seeing these freezers for sale, like you’d have in your basement or garage or mudroom or whatever, deep enough to hide two medium bodies… No modern household is complete without one, especially if there’s a Costco within driving distance… but now I’m seeing them with camoflage paint.
Now, I understand the purpose of camo is to hide. Commando: expose; camo: hide. It’s a simple algorithm.
And now we have camo freezers, mottled green and olive and brown. The only place they’d have any chance of blending in, of course, is in the middle of the woods. And then you’d need a super-long camo extension cord, because a camo generator would be noisy and defeat the illusion of camoflage. Or perhaps a camo battery would work for a while, but they’re heavy.
But here’s the thing: you don’t really take this kind of freezer out to the woods and leave it there. It has no wheels, it’s mother heavy, it’s obviously for indoor use. And in your basement or garage, camo paint is not going to fool anybody. It’s not like someone’s going to need your help to find the freezer because it blends in. “Bill, you need another beer? Just head toward that marshy area next to the washing machine - don’t worry, it’s stable enough to walk on - can you find a handle? Yes, pull it - amazing huh? A freezer hidden in my storage bog!”
No, people with these freezers aren’t hiding anything. They’re proud of their camo. They use it in ironically inappropriate contexts. The idea that camo is a preferred aesthetic for some segment of our population large enough to merit a whole production run of bunker-sized freezers - this idea is disturbing to me on many different levels.
