The New Fridge: A Dreadful Enemy

My refrigerator died. One day I came home to find it making horrendously annoying clicking and whirring noises, and no cold air coming from its vents inside. It had obviously been doing this for some time because nobody was alarmed at it (except me) and they were all in the kitchen, wanting to know what I was going to do about it.

I called my brother (who, I believe, is capable of fixing or at least diagnosing anything). At his suggestion I also googled the model of fridge to see what other people had had happen to it. It's a 9 year old fridge, and the chances were really good it was the compressor or the motherboard. One person had paid about $700 to get his fixed (motherboard replacement) and it took a week. I don't know what he did with his food, but I needed my fridge (and freezer) back, immediately. I had no other place to keep cold food in the house.

And since I'd started eating more meat and more produce, there was more in the fridge than, say, a year ago. 

So I researched online, found a fridge I liked, found it was on backorder for four weeks from everywhere, chose my second favorite, and ordered it for delivery on Friday (it was Tuesday). It was too late to do much of anything with the fridge as it was, so I went out and bought dry ice and put it on the top shelf of the fridge (it was a bottom freezer fridge/freezer combo).

This kept it cold for the opening and shutting of the door that had to happen for supper to occur (and don't think I wasn't tempted to simply skip supper between the difficulty involved in getting it and the stress of all the phone calls and research). It also kept it cold all the next day while I was at work.

After work I stopped in at my parents' house, borrowed their coolers and my dad and his Kia (holds more than my little car), went to my house, emptied my freezer and part of my fridge into the coolers, went back to their house and unloaded the contents of my freezer into one of their full-size freezers. Mom, meanwhile, had been consolidating and making room for my stuff.

Okay, we're set for Wednesday. But the dry ice was three-quarters gone, and I couldn't afford to keep buying it. So I asked around for fridges to borrow (the little sort, that you get for dorm rooms) but nobody had one. Eventually my brother offered to let me borrow his (didn't know he had one either) and it turned out he didn't, not actually. He didn't have one sitting around. He had one he used at work. So it was very nice of him to let me borrow it, considering it was in use!

Friday was the delivery date. The website had the time and was updating it like every ten minutes. It would come at 12:30. At 11:30 it said it would arrive at 12:29. Okay, so I need to leave work in case it backed up even closer to current time. I got home, checked again, and it said it wasn't going to deliver until Monday.

Wait, what???? I called in righteous indignation. Ma'am, I was told, we don't stock those in our warehouse to prevent damage and it has to come direct from the manufacturer and they don't have any in stock. 

Um ... you didn't even check until five minutes ago? How can you manage your inventory like that? And no, I can't wait till Monday. I already took today off (a half day) and I can't take mondays off. Not without a lot of pre-planning. 

They could offer me a specific 2 hour window for free (normally it's all day long and you don't know until the night before which 2 hour window you got). 

Um ... no, you're not understanding me. I have to have the new fridge this weekend. Well, they're terribly sorry, but they can't get it to me. I wouldn't have ordered it if I'd known that. 

They should have known they didn't have one in stock (I didn't actually say that because I was too irritated at this point and the woman talking to me didn't deserve quite that angry of a tone of voice. Wasn't her fault). Needless to say, I will not be buying any appliance from Sears again.

So I cancelled the order and started calling around town, trying to find someone who could deliver me a fridge next-day. One potential store went to voicemail. Nope, need it now. The sooner I can get one ordered, the more chance I have of getting my next-day delivery. So they didn't get my money simply because they were too busy to answer the phone. (The receptionist answered, just not the salesperson.)

HHGregg answered their phone. Said they'd be able to do that, special, but if I could come into the store (I was on their website, looking at choices) it would be better so they could push that through. So I did.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate talking on the phone to strangers? Have I ever mentioned how much I hate going back out after I've come home? But here I was, doing things I hate because I needed food.

I ended up buying a different type of fridge than I wanted. This one has french doors on the top and a freezer drawer on the bottom and a fridge drawer in the middle. It has two compressors, one for the fridge and one for the freezer so you don't use as much energy cooling the fridge down (or the freezer) when you open it. I wanted the drawer concept, though, as I was tired of the pool of cold air falling out onto my toes when I opened the door on the freezer of the other fridge.

In actuality, I think I like the french doors better. I think I like this whole fridge better, even though it has a little less fridge space due to the icemaker in the corner of the fridge and the dent in the door (from the water dispenser).

'

Much suspicion on the part of the cats.

 The cats were not as impressed. They hated the drawers. It took them a whole week to stop leaving the room when I opened one. Thimble was initially okay with it since he could reach underneath and since the process of getting it produced several kitty toys that he had stuffed under the other fridge.

Oh, and the process of getting it was really nice. They showed up at 7 am the next morning, which was actually the perfect time for me on a Saturday. The one who spoke English was explaining that he was trying to avoid having to take my door off the hinges.

And my brain, for once, went into overdrive, thinking fast enough. That door didn't have doorstops on the hinges and had put a dent into my other fridge simply because you could open it too far. I'd purchased door stops for it. And then discovered the middle hinge was missing. I couldn't get the top hinge or the bottom hinge out on my own due to the torque resulting from the door trying to hang on one hinge. Perfect opportunity!

Would it be easier if you took the door off? I asked, all innocence. Well, yes, he admitted. Will you put these on the hinges when you put it back? I asked, holding up the pouch of door stops I'd had sitting on my kitchen table for years. Sure, no problem, he said.

Problem solved. For both of us.

Oh, and the cats, of course, were at the opposite end of the house for the move!

He can get a paw underneath!

Seriously not happy about the drawer concept

So, now I have a new fridge. I like it, the cats have gotten used to it and like it (it helped when I started keeping their pumpkin in the fridge drawer so that "good things" came out of it). 

Whew.