The Zen of the Ice Trays

Filling up the icecube trays has to be a form of religion in some counties.
This is what I thought as I poured tap water into the squares of the blue plastic tray that I held in my hand. I pictured in my mind a tribe of robed monks waiting patiently for someone of their order to begin the process of preparing a warm drink. Glass…check, tasty beverage of choice ready for consumption…check, icecubes to cool the tasty beverage of choice to the perfect consumption temperature of fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit …che….wait, where are the icecubes?
This is the part where the lazy monk is shunned from his clan because he failed to fill the tiny slots of a plastic tray and put it in the freezer when it was his turn. Thus ruining the process of preparing the tasty beverage and mentally scaring his fellow monk who was waiting in anticipation for the drink. This is why you have to stay on top of these things.
My roommate in college, Joe “the baron of order and restraint,” said that filling up the ice trays is a matter of constant vigilance and strict routine that you have to stay on top of lest it slip and you waver in your focus of what’s important. Of course he also said this about masturbation, so I’m not sure that I can take his advice seriously. Having gone to college after being in the navy, Joe believed in keeping an order to his life by being a minimalist. What I mean by this is that Joe had the notion that all the possessions that a person owned should be able to be packed into a duffel bag at any moments notice in case you had to leave in a hurry. Joe believed in restraint in all things that you do, yet never adhered to this ideology too well himself. Joe was the master of this philosophy, but never the student.
So should the most mundane tasks, like filling up the ice trays, be broken down to a strict code that one must follow? One thinks of these things when they open the freezer and see seven empty ice trays while holding a warm beverage in their hand. My other roommate Dave felt that the person who emptied the last icecube tray should fill all the rest of them up. I often saw Dave drink warm sodas just so he wouldn’t have to fill this task himself. Are we so lazy that we would rather drink warm Dr. Pepper rather than take the thirty seconds to run water into the pre-formed slots of the trays?
We, as a society, do such things as this everyday without even thinking about them due to the fact that we believe suck tasks are meaningless and have no bearing on the world at large. Put that empty orange juice container right back in the fridge. Piss at least one person off today. In fact, let’s just take this apathetic attitude toward all inconvenient tasks shall we. I hate stopping at the gas station and filling up my car, so I think I’ll just leave it wherever it stops when it runs out of gas and pick up another one along the way. That makes sense, because if I don’t have to do such a minor thing as fill up my own ice trays why should I sweat the big stuff like taxes?
This comes from a man who is guilty himself of forgoing the thirty second process of filling the trays on occasion so don’t think I’m speaking without first taking a look at my own lazy habits. I have often found myself opening the freezer and finding the cupboard bare, so to speak, of the refreshing blocks of frozen water that would cool my tasty beverage to the perfect temperature of Zen-like consumption. The simple fact is that when you drink a beverage at the perfect degree of coolness you can sometimes touch God. Thus in order to maintain a good mental and spiritual wellbeing it becomes imperative that these ice trays be filled.