Dear Fridge: Please Come Back

So our fridge broke down Sunday night. We only realized this because my aunt opened the freezer and noticed that a lot of the food looked odd. It looked… unfrozen.

My aunt did what she does in every crisis, which is to be practical and fret simultaneously. This meant that she called Sears, gave some food to neighbors to store in their freezers, some to cousin #2 (who was visiting), as well as filled coolers with ice and food. Then she proceeded to freak out about the possibility of a short-circuit, and made cousin #2 disconnect the fridge.

It should be noted that at this time, cousin # 1 was either downstairs or momentarily hovering upstairs, looking concerned and periodically cursing through gritted teeth at his brother, cousin # 2. Which just meant more hilarity for me.

The Sears people said they couldn’t make it till the following Monday. That’s right, not Monday the 7th, but Monday the 14th. Ridiculous.

The last time we had fridge issues was right after Hurricane Isabel. Then, like now, we had to toss out a fair bit of food, and we vowed, VOWED, that our freezer would never ever be stuffed to the gills again.

We lied to ourselves, people. We lied. Because our freezer was clearly prepped for the apocalypse. And we’re not even Christian!

All of this makes me think of my mother’s mother, who didn’t have a fridge till she was in her 40s. That means for nearly 20 years, she was cooking for a family of six, three meals a day, every day, and was rarely able to store food beyond a day, if that. And she lived to tell the tale. Once you have the fridge though, as we do, and are as reliant on it as we all are, it’s hard to imagine managing for even a short period of time without it.

Thus, gloom fell over the house.

We’re putting fresh ice in the cooler to keep the food in it cold, but I think we’ll have to toss some of the food out. (Mostly frozen meats). My aunt has called Sears twice today, and they are going to push the appointment back to Friday and have asked us to keep calling so that if there’s a cancellation, we can get a technician over here asap.

Hopefully we’ll be back to fridge-ability in four days. In the meantime, if you see me towing a bag of sausages on the metro, don’t hate; commiserate.