A brush with possible danger

From Steve:
Somehow I expected a little bit more.
I thought we would be buried in beef.
Here is what a quarter cow looks like after they drag it out to your car.

A quarter of a cow fits in five puny milk crates?
I guess so. You can kind of visualize it. If you stacked 20 of them and put them in five stacks of four, and put it on bony legs with hooves, I guess it would be about the size of a cow.
It all fit in three coolers in the back of the van.

Here's the scary part. Within minutes of packing the meet into the coolers in the back of the van, we had our first brush with cow-borne disease.

Laura may dispute this, but to me it's quite clear. Even a cursory examination of the meteorological data clearly displayed (in accordance with state health statutes, I believe) on the sign outside the butcher shop made it clear that these were not prime conditions for safely storing meat in the back of a minivan.

If it's not in the health codes, it should be: Any time the sign outside the meat processing facility shows the temperature to be above freezing, you should pack the meat in the back of the minivan as quickly as possible, then drive immediately at the highest speed permitted by law to your freezer.

After we loaded up the quarter-beeve, however, we went to a nearby outlet mall.

Needless to say, this side trip was made against my better judgement.
As shopping trips often do, this one seemed to take forever.
I didn't time the side trip to the outlet mall. And I didn't try to hurry Laura unnecessarily. I'm not that kind of person.
But I will say for the record that even one minute too long would have been enough to thaw the beef and endanger our family.

I think we got out of the stores just in time, because the meat was still all solidly frozen, although I could clearly imagine blood dripping from the the back door of the van. I don't think Laura noticed I was concerned. I'm not the kind of person who likes to worry other people.