Friday, September 9, 2011

Beware the Click

I wake up in the middle of the night.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Hard to go back to sleep, waiting for the next click, and wondering what it really is.

Later in the week: stand in the kitchen.

Click.

Click.

Sounds like an electrical relay.

Is the stove still on? No.

Click.

Is the dishwasher drying? No.

Click.

Noise near espresso machine. Is the espresso machine plotting a nefarious explosive disaster? Unplug machine.

Click.

Listen near outlet.

Click.

Kill power to outlet.

Click.

Hmmm. Gotta be near it.

Aha! Click is loud and ear is right next to icemaker in the freezer. Icemaker likely to be dying due to ice cream and leftovers being shoved into ice bin. Awful side-by-side fridge/freezer that came with the house doesn't allow practical loading of freezer. Or the fridge.

Maybe fridge will die! Hate this fridge! Nothing ever fits!

Ooop. Attempt to atone to fridge gods for blasphemous thoughts by going grocery shopping.

Put groceries away. All seems well.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Decide to process leftover strawberries into popsicles an hour later. Open freezer to see if popsicle molds are in the door.

Whoosh! Flood! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaghh! Bag of frozen peas that would have been the usual object falling on my head upon opening the freezer instead goes splat onto my arm. Formerly frozen peas. Gross-O!

All ice cubes are now merely formerly frozen ice cubes. Thus the flood. Fridge/freezer has become stuffy cubical of warm air.

Click.

Click. Must be the relay for the now-known-to-be-broken compressor. Sadly, more fundamental than the icemaker.

Have an eighth of a grass-fed cow in the freezer (friend has ranch = we can buy good beef cheap). Don't want to lose a year's worth of moo meat. Argh!

Discover that Diddams is the local source for dry ice. Drive over to get it. Yuck. This part of town is easier to get to by bike but have large cooler and not much time. Beef temporarily rescued.

Realize kid has come home from school complaining about headache, sore neck, and having been hit in the head with soccer ball in PE. Assess for damage, administer sympathy. Fortunately, just sensitive kid.

Everything else into other cooler with ice packs.

Another mooshy bag thawed formerly frozen peas. Eeew. Not sure why this grosses me out so much. Peas not supposed to splat.

Hand kid half-full carton of ice cream and call it snack. Consternation! Apparently too gross to eat when molten. Hand kid glass full of melted popsicles; that deemed yummy.

Hop in the car and drop kid off at rehearsal, decide that ancient already-hated fridge of betrayal must go away rather than be repaired.

Drive all over creation at rush hour to get consumer reports from library and put eyeballs and fingers on all likely fridges while Nim is at rehearsal. Traffic. Bleah. Standard fridge configurations these days = double bleah. Bottom freezer models have morphed to a dumb freezer-is-drawer configuration that is just *asking* to be overloaded and then broken or jammed stuck upon closing.

Why no nice bottom-freezer fridge with an actual door and normal shelf? Need ability to put large awkward objects in. Multiple large awkward objects. Cookie sheets covered with strange delicate things. Culinary foibles live in my kitchen.

Chad locates friend with spare freezer capacity for temporary beef storage. Dinner ready when we get home. Yay spouse!

Appropriate small garage beer fridge for milk and veggies. Thank you spouse.

Drop off meat at friend fridge in the morning, look at top candidate fridges again. Chad's sharp eyes spy a decent bottom-freezer model from an older year with a door. Yaaaaaay spouse! It's on sale.

All is well?

No.

New fridge can't be delivered until 9/23. Everything backed up due to others' purchases at Labor Day sales. Argh.

Now apply patience for two weeks. Then all will be well.

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