WHAT would you do if I sung these words to you?

Do you wanna build a snowman?

Come on let’s go and play

I never see you anymore,

Come out the door, it’s like you’ve gone away

We used to be best buddies, and now we’re not

I wish you would tell me whyyyyyyyyyyyyy …”

Would you A) think “well, that’s it, Whiting’s finally lost it, or B) respond, very possibly with tears in your eyes: “Do you wanna build a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman … okay, bye.’’ If you answered B) this means you have a small person somewhere in your life, therefore you have seen the Disney children’s animation Frozen, several hundred times.

It means you watch it at home, over and over again, it means you play the soundtrack in the car, and you find yourself breaking into “Love is an open do-or-or’’ at inappropriate moments, mostly when someone actually does open a door for you.

It also means you will be aware that Queensland is in the midst, somewhat paradoxically, of a Frozen drought, that there is not a single piece of Frozen merchandise to be had in this entire state.

Forget the Cabbage Patch Doll Crisis of 1984, the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle Shortage of 1994, and more recently the Great Loom Band Famine, because none of them can begin to compare to the Frozen Drought of 2014.

Don’t believe me?

Look out your windows, people – do you see those men and women scurrying along the streets, heads down, arms empty, and with the words of their spouses ringing in their ears: “Don’t even think about coming home without an Elsa doll.’’

But there are no Elsa dolls out there, are there?

No Annas either, and people are now so desperate they’re happy to take Olaf, the perennially happy snowman, or at a stretch, the donkey.

I’ve never seen anything like it – and I lived through the Estee Lauder Blockbuster shortage of 2004, where I tried everything to get my hands on one of those perfect make-up kits that Christmas, only to be told by one shop assistant “Look honey, it’s over, go home to your family”.

Well, let me tell you something, the quest for a Blockbuster was a walk in the park compared with the hell that is the Frozen drought.

In a moment of lunacy, my friend Trent promised his little girl an Elsa doll for her birthday and then spent days wandering the streets of Brisbane, increasingly desperate, only to return to work a broken man, clutching some sort of small figurine that may or may not have been Elsa or a cheap, Japanese rip-off.

“It was the best I could do, Fran,’’ he told me, “do you hear me? It was the best I could do,’’ shuffling off to meet his fate – one heartbroken little girl and one severely unimpressed wife.

Then there are those reckless fools who promised their children not just an Anna doll, but an entire Frozen-themed birthday party, not realising that the demand for Anna paper plates and party favours would quickly outstrip supply.

One woman I know went from promising her daughter a snowy landscape just like the village in the movie, to handing out cups of ice at the door.

There are thousands of tales like these in our city, a city where a wild rumour is currently going around that “a big shipment is coming in July’’.

Every time you inquire about Frozen merchandise, someone takes you aside and says quietly: “Look, I’m not sure if I should be telling you this, but I hear a big shipment’s coming in July … down by the docks … wear a red carnation and tell ’em Big Willie sent ya.’’

I could do that – or I could shamelessly use this column to solicit for an Elsa doll for my little girl. I’ll pay cash, in unmarked bills.

You know where to find me.

frances.whiting@news.com.au

Twitter @franceswhiting