Sure as day follows night, if a vital appliance or car is going to break down, it’ll be at the most inconvenient time.
It’s never going to be a laugh-a-minute when something major goes on the blink, but a Monday morning – say around 10-ish – offers many more repair options than a Saturday at 6pm. Yes, there are companies that operate 24/7, but out-of-hours labour rates make you want to grab a spanner and start scanning through YouTube DIY videos.
Where am I going with this? Our fridge died on the day that every business was closed due to a tropical storm warning. I sleep later than my bestie and housemate Lynne, so she had to knock on my bedroom door with the news in the morning.
“There’s water on the floor under the freezer,” she announced. Not even a how-did-you-sleep? inquiry. Straight to it.
Even though we had a high-end, built-in KitchenAid model, I was doubtful that it came with the optional weeping freezer feature. Up I got, and sure enough, there was water on the floor and all my favourite popsicles were liquid in their cellophane coffins. The fridge was cool, but it clearly wasn’t giving its all either. Houston, we had a problem.
Luckily, we had an old fridge in another part of the house, along with a mini version for guests, but that meant emptying everything from the broken behemoth to transfer over, while making some difficult choices in the process due to new space restrictions. I think Lynne was privately thrilled that I was now forced to throw out items expired from 2022 that, until that day, I had argued were still perfectly viable. They might have been, but that rise of five degrees is all it would have taken to turn them into Ebola. My tears joined the pool of water on the floor as I disposed of unopened pots of clotted cream, jars of olives, and three large tubs of mayonnaise.
After a couple of hours, everything was cleared out. Fun times.
The next day, we got technicians in to make an assessment. The motherboard had breathed her last, there wasn’t a part on the island, they would have to send our one overseas to be repaired, it could take weeks. They should have lead with that information, as the rest was white noise. We couldn’t wait that long.
After the techs left, the arguments about full replacements began in the privacy of our own home with no witnesses. I really wanted to stick with a side-by-side built-in, mainly because anything else was going to look odd in the frame that surrounded it. I don’t know how familiar you are with these designs, but much like a Volkswagen, the engine isn’t at the back. A lot of the workings are at the top, making it a very tall drink of water. Lynne didn’t want a built-in and she was stomping her little foot about having a freezer drawer at the bottom instead of at the side. Who knew people could get so emotional about something as utilitarian as a refrigerator?
I reminded her that she was 5 feet tall, and I was not. I wasn’t a huge fan of bending down every time I needed ice cream – a dessert for most; a staple for me.
It was all fairly moot at that precise moment anyway, as we didn’t know what was available on the island and that was probably the biggest factor of all. I had visions of eight cube fridges in different colours stacked in a 2×4 formation within the frame, simply because those were the only items that didn’t have to be shipped in.
That same evening, we waded our way to A. L. Thompson’s to see what they had in store. Turned out, it was quite a lot. Stainless steel, brilliant white, tall ones, short ones, French doors, side-by-side, drawer freezers, ice-and-water dispensers … Speaking of tears, I think I saw Lynne’s eyes well up as they took in the bounty before them. I was completely overwhelmed. How was I supposed to even begin? Then I spied a KitchenAid built-in in the showroom with almost exactly the same dimensions as our old one. Fantastic; decision made.
“No, ma’am – that one has to be special ordered.”
Barnacles.
It quickly became clear that we were going to have to go with a standalone version. It had to be counter-depth, as tall as possible, and have the ice dispenser in the door. Lynne was still fairly hell-bent on the freezer drawer, but thawed (get it?) a little when we saw a very nice side-by-side at the end of the row. Nope – too deep. If we had to squash past it in the kitchen, we’d risk the stovetop in the centre setting our clothes on fire.
What felt like 76 hours later, it was down to two models, and I kept jogging back and forth between them. If I’d been wearing my Apple Watch, I would have expected a “It looks like you’re choosing a fridge” message to pop up, with an offer to start recording that very specific type of exercise.
Whether it was weariness, resignation, or finding a design we could both live with, we finally selected our new KitchenAid. It couldn’t have been better timing either, as ALT was holding a massive sale two days later. They wouldn’t allow us to advance purchase, so nice and early on the Friday we went in, paid for the appliance, and by Monday evening it was installed … with a big silk plant at the top to fill in the gap.
As God is my witness, when Lynne heard the sale was going on for a couple of weeks yet, she said, “You know … our dishwasher … ”
Only if they offer a bottle of tequila with purchase.
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