Excitement Plus

We have a new fridge! At first, I wasn’t too excited about it. The old one had been making threatening noises for quite a while and on Monday it gave up the ghost with a shrieking and squealing that woke Richard from his sleep. I was out for my morning walk at the time, so I was spared the worst of the noise.

When I arrived home the fridge was pulled out from the wall, unplugged and Richard had vacuumed up the years of dust bunnies that had found shelter behind it.  He was on the net looking up possible causes for the hubbub and possible fixes for it. He told me it wouldn’t be that hard to fix. I wasn’t very impressed. While the fridge has worked more-or-less tirelessly for over 20 years, there are a few things that I wasn’t that fond of. Food tended to freeze if stored against the right-hand wall and it was a typical ‘80’s model with the fridge on the bottom and the freezer on top.  Kneeling on the floor every time I put away the groceries is mot among my favourite things. We decided it was time for a new one.

Long weekend, holiday Monday. The appliance place we tried first had a completely deserted parking lot. Clue #1. Oh well, Home Depot is always open. We headed to the nearest one. It was open but it seemed that everyone who was looking at appliances wanted help from the staff. We talked to several people who were in line before us waiting for assistance. One guy actually ended up taking a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket, turning it upside down and sitting on it beside the computer station. I don’t think he intended to buy it despite having moved it from the stack of buckets two aisles down. Turns out he had some strong opinions on new vs. used appliances. He was all for buying used.  Said that he’d had really good luck with them except for once and that was the only thing his wife remembered. He proceeded to go through a catalogue of deals he had gotten on used items and in the listing, I heard him admit more than once that things hadn’t worked out.

When the sales person called to him and his wife to come to another counter, he sat firmly on his upturned bucket and continued presenting the case for used vs. new.  When Richard asked him if he wanted to go with his wife, he declined saying he was just there to drive the car and she never listened to him anyway. When someone came to look after us, he carried on talking to our backs as we walked away with the sales associate. Once we had someone to talk with, the purchase and arrangements for delivery and removal of the old fridge took about 10 minutes. When we walked by the computer station neither person nor bucket was visible.

We have an old fridge of Mum’s downstairs, so it wasn’t much of a hardship to go without the upstairs one for 3 days until the new one arrived. I said to Richard on the way home from that purchase that if it had been a new tool, I would have been quite excited but a fridge? Meh.

I’m in the process of revising that statement. The new fridge has all kinds of room in it even after coming back with the week’s usual load of groceries. I put everything away without once having to kneel, and when I open the door I can actually see what’s in there instead of reaching tentatively toward the back never quite sure if some forgotten life-form is going to rise up and attack. When I want milk, I can get it without having to move three other containers onto the counter first. And, there is no duct tape holding one of the shelves to the door.  Bonus.

Always known for our sense of style and fashion, our kitchen could now be called early western patchwork. The stove is almond; the microwave is black; and the fridge is white. Neither or us wanted stainless steel because it shows fingerprints too readily and, besides,  we must have a fridge that is magnet friendly. 

I didn’t think a new fridge would make much of a difference to me, but I find myself smiling when I open the door to look for something and I don’t have to bend over. Also, it’s rather nice that it no longer sounds like there’s a helicopter trying to take off in the kitchen whenever the fridge motor comes on. How long will this fridge infatuation last? Anybody’s guess, but I’ll enjoy it while it does and try not to become complacent too soon.