Somewhere There is a Fridge for Us

I came into the house the evening of Monday, December 5th, to find everything in our kitchen fridge unusually warm.  Sometime during the day our fridge had died.

Years ago a friend had offered me her old fridge when she'd purchased a new one.  She had warned us that it was on its last legs but still running and was hoping to find it a home so that she didn't have to pay to have it hauled away.

I jumped at the opportunity to have a back-up fridge and told her (without even checking with my husband) that we'd be down to pick it up.  We picked it up (actually he picked it up, I sat in the truck) and we (he) placed it in our garage next to our freezer.

Six years later that old fridge is still running.  It's come in handy, holding overflow for holiday dinners, etc.  On the numerous times we've lost power (sometimes for multiple days), we've moved everything out of the kitchen fridge into the old one in the garage where the fridge and freezer are connected to a generator.

With the loss of our kitchen fridge, we moved into "no power" mode.  We then proceeded to start the research for a new fridge. 

It was fun to look for a new fridge and I was picky, knowing that the opportunity for a new appliance like this doesn't come along often.  It took a few days, but on December 8th we knew what we wanted and what store we wanted to purchase it from.  The sale was made.

Today is January 7th and as of yesterday our new fridge is still MIA.  It was initially supposed to be delivered on December 16th.  We got a call and were told it would be a "few more weeks".  The new delivery date was yesterday, January 6th.  We got a call on January 4th with the same message, but this time there was no future delivery date.

We lost our fridge a week after the "Black Friday" sales.  Everybody and their brother wanted the same fridge we did.  The factory is over loaded with orders and indeed everywhere I look this particular fridge is on back order.

It's gotten old (real old) to go out to the garage to get something out of the old fridge.  I took the large fruit basket usually on the kitchen counter and moved it to the garage so that we could use it to ferry food back and forth.  The basket sits on the hood of my car, which is parked opposite the old fridge.  I can't count how many times I've pulled out of the garage and started to head down our drive to see that darned basket sitting on my hood.

I've tried to convince my family that it's good exercise to go a few more steps (58 one way) to get something out of the fridge.  Although they were initially good sports about the whole deal, the last call from the store with no idea as to when we'd see our new fridge moved them to rebellion and I can't say I blame them.

I faced them this morning with a suggestion for a different fridge, located online and noted as being immediately available from the store who currently holds us hostage.  I assured my family that today was the day.  My husband and I would visit the store and we'd come home Heroes with a solid delivery date for a fridge (or we wouldn't come home at all).

Off my husband and I went to meet with the individual who sold us our fridge a month ago.  She apologized, showing us a large stack of paper with names on it of poor souls like us, waiting for their new fridge.  She noted that as large as that stack was, those individuals were ahead of us in line and told us that our names hadn't even been added to the list yet.

She asked us if we had any other fridge we'd like to purchase.  I proudly whipped out my piece of paper and presented her with our replacement fridge, noting that this one shouldn't be any issue in getting delivered because the web page says its immediately available.

You can imagine our reaction when after many minutes of  looking at her computer; she looked up at us with a blank face and told us that for some reason the replacement fridge was nowhere on this earth to be found.  My husband immediately drifted away to the lighting aisle (not a good sign) and I still have the bite marks on the inside of my cheeks from trying to remain composed.

While she made "one more call", I went in search of my husband, now somewhere amongst the table saws.

As we discussed what to do next, there was commotion behind us as our sales person came towards us.  "Guess what?" she gushed with a huge smile (of relief?) on her face.  "A car of fridges has just arrived and there is one on the car for you!" 

With some additional reasoning as to why a fridge suddenly appeared out of nowhere - of which I still can't figure out, she informed us that our new fridge should be available for delivery next week.  She then proceeded to set us up on the computer with a delivery day of next Friday the 13th.

However, the scheduled delivery date is Friday the 13th.  I can't help but be wary, can our luck get any worse? 

Perhaps I should invest in running shoes for my family members.  Or maybe transportation between the kitchen and garage. 

Hmmm.  I wonder how Bob would do as a pack horse?