It was the worst thing to be asked.  We dreaded it.  We argued over it.  But more than anything, my siblings and I feared it.  The basement.  Specifically, being asked to go into the furnace room to get anything out of the freezer after dinner.  In the dark.  

If you didn’t grow up in the midwest, you might need some perspective here.  First, basements are the norm in my native state of Minnesota.  Ours was almost completely finished off with knotty pine paneling and a linoleum floor. At one point, we even had a ping pong table (bought by