Monday morning at 6:20 a.m. I came into my kitchen to find this (see picture),
along with water puddles, smears of water, and large sneaker footprints all over my kitchen floor. I took the wet dish towel on the floor as a sign my husband wanted me to know there had been, and was still, water on the floor. I got a large towel and went about moping the floor before I fixed my daughter's lunch for school. When I went into the freezer to get out the ice pack that would go into the lunch box I discovered it was sweating. My initial thought as I stood there in the open door was my daughter must have forgotten to put in the pack from the previous day, but then my eyes moved upward to where I had my newest obsession lying out on a shelf; organic lime popsicles. They are packaged in clear plastic, and the only thing I saw was the stick. My brain thought that odd, and so I picked up the package by the end. The entire thing was liquid, and suddenly, despite the early morning hour, everything kicked in upstairs. My eyes took in the fact that the entire freezer was dripping as if it had just stepped out of the shower. I started touching all of the food, and except for one package of chicken and the hundreds of sticks of butter Madison buys for baking, everything was defrosted. My freezer was kaput.
I started tossing food into the garbage can. In went my lime popsicles, in went the waffles, and into the can went the garlic bread. It was about this time that my husband and the dog returned. Poor timing on my part.
Tom: "What are you doing?"
Me: "The freezer is dead. Everything is thawed."
Tom: "Why are you throwing out the garlic bread? There is nothing wrong with that. It will be fine."
Me: "Uh, I'm not eating any of this stuff. This freezer had to have died more than twenty four hours ago. Everything but the butter and the chicken is thawed, and not very cold."
My husband does not process emergencies quickly. He, of course, will tell you differently, but trust me on this; he doesn't. He is great once his brain has had time to think through every little detail forward, backwards, and sideways, but it is not able to do this immediately. Mine on the other hand, doesn't have a lot of activity in there daily, and so it is able to process right away, and it is always jumping to the conclusion that THIS IS A CATASTROPHE.
Me: "I don't think the refrigerator is working either."
Tom: "What? There is nothing wrong with the refrigerator. I just had orange juice. It was fine."
Me: "It most definitely isn't fine. I just drank some water from this bottle, and believe me it was not as cold as it usually is, and I should know because I drink water every morning."
Tom: "It's fine. If you just leave the doors closed it will stay cool."
I gave up. Or at least that is what I let him believe. The thing about being a SAHM is we know how to handle our husbands. I shut the doors to the broken refrigerator/freezer, and went to see my daughter off to school. Tom went off to shower and get ready for work, and while he was doing that he was processing. I knew it, and I knew all I had to do was wait him out. Sure enough he emerged from our bedroom, went to his file cabinet, searched for the file on our appliance, and discovered we were still under warranty. He is the king of warranties, and had re-upped our warranty for three years after our last freezer fiasco (read about that
here). He took a pen and circled and underlined model numbers, phone numbers, and serial numbers all the while giving me instructions on what to say and how to handle things. By the third reminder, I had had enough.
I got up and made the phone call. It was 7:32 a.m. and I made the mistake of putting it on speaker. I figured an automated message would tell me the hours didn't start until 8:00, but I was wrong. A man with an Indian accent answered and told me his name was Lawrence. I started talking to him, and suddenly there was Tom standing behind me, his coffee and briefcase in hand, telling me what to tell the guy. I shooed him out the door, and watched from the window as he got into his car.
Lawrence: "Okay, Cara, I have this account in another name."
Me: "Yes, yes, it is under Tom"
Lawrence: "And what relationship is Tom to you?"
Me: "He is my Pain in the Ass."
I thought that hilarious seeing as how my morning had gone, and was quite proud of my wit. Lawrence gave a snicker, but he did agree to work with me, and together we went through model and serial numbers. He punched and tapped keys on a keyboard, and then informed me that our warranty was with another company. He gave me the number, we hung up, and I dialed the next guy. His name was Denver, and he had no accent. I told him the name was under Tom.
Denver: "And who do I have the pleasure of speaking with right now?"
Me: "Cara"
Denver: "And you are Tom's....?"
Me: "I'm
his Pain in the Ass."
I thought that only fair, and Denver thought it hilarious. He laughed out loud, and before we knew it we were buddies. He heard Elliot barking and inquired about my dog. He told me about his dog named Colorado. I asked if that was where he was based, and he told me that no he was based out of southern Indiana. WHAT? Turns out he was born in the same town that I lived in for over twenty years. We spent twenty minutes talking about local restaurants and businesses. Small world.
Denver told me I would receive a call within four hours as this was considered an emergency. Five hours later I called back, and a snotty girl told me I had another hour to wait. We argued about math for a moment, and then she told me I could wait all day per policy "There isn't anything I can do about that." Twenty minutes later I got the phone call telling me the name of the repair company. It was the same company that had just been here last week to repair "wink, wink" my dishwasher. Ten minutes later that company called to tell me a repair man would be at my house later that afternoon. An hour later Rick showed up, and after a quick examination told me I needed a new compressor, and that the part would be ordered and here by Thursday. My thought was, "Yay. No cooking for a week!"
My wonderful neighbor Bonnie, she who has three refrigerators, let me have her new refrigerator that she just got and put on her lanai. I filled it, and we now traipse back and forth and in and out of her house to get items we need. I spent several hours cleaning out the entire refrigerator and freezer, taking apart drawers and cleaning up spills. I kind of hate to fill it back up it is so sparkly. We have a small cooler in the garage with milk, juice, yogurt, and creamer, and last night we argued over who should replace the ice. I suggested a game of rock, paper, scissors. I lost and had to go out at 9:30 p.m. to get the ice. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm bored with eating out at various restaurants.
Later that evening Tom called to ask me if I needed anything from the grocery.
Me: "Uh, and where would you have me put it? The refrigerator is dead too."
Tom: "I was just asking. I have to make meatballs tonight for tomorrow's employee holiday party."
Me: "And are you going to use the meatballs that were thawed out in our freezer? I sure hope no one gets ill from those."
Tom: "Don't be ridiculous. If it were me, I would have thrown out all of that stuff in there."
He has had a whole day of processing, and most likely discussing it with his co-workers. Yep, I can't win. Ho, ho, ho.
