Imlebideli

There is little worse than when a refrigerator dies.

Except when a refrigerator full of food dies — while you’re away from home.

I came back from a brief time away (I love that I’m going on business trips as a government employee. It makes no sense.) to find that my 15 year old Whirlpool, previously known to be temperamental but otherwise quite dependable, was gone, gone, gone. And with it, it took a lot of food. A frightening lot of food, including some vegetables which felt that several days in a dark, dank, enclosed space presented a perfect opportunity to turn into a liquidy, goopy, fungus and mold laden horror.

Seriously, the “scary” scenes in slasher films have nothing on what I saw when I opened the crisper bin. And the smell. . . I can’t talk about it without thinking about it and when I think about it, I get nauseated — quite severely nauseated. Cleaning it out was a torturous Sunday evening of latex gloves, heavy duty trash bags, a bucket with a heavy solution of Mr. Clean, and many breaks to get fresh air. Yuck. Thinking about that is creating a nasty taste at the back of my throat.

So with this useless — but clean! — box sitting in my kitchen gathering dust and mocking me each time I walked past it, I had to start looking for a replacement. I had Tuesday and Friday of last week off, for the mess that-was-and-is Election Day and for Veteran’s Day, and I spent both of those days, sorely needed days off, searching for a refrigerator. I hadn’t budgeted for this to happen this year. I hadn’t expected to make another major purchase this year, save for a few holiday gifts, things were going to be tight through year’s end. Not desolate or dangerous, just without room for many frivolities.

So I shopped around for bargains, but realised that I didn’t want the cheapest thing available — freezer on top models. I don’t want to bend over every time I want something from the refrigerator. Likewise, I don’t want to bend all the way over every time I want an ice cube, so the freezer on the bottom concept didn’t appeal either. So I was resigned to a side-by-side model. I really wanted something comparable to what I had, with an icemaker and the water and ice dispenser on the door. This posed problems — there were plenty of refrigerators out there that had the features that I wanted, but they were also loaded with features that I didn’t need. Spillproof shelves? Four different drawers for deli meats and cheeses and snacks and vegetables and who knows what else? A wine rack? A Culligan water filter that added $200 to the price? I didn’t think so. Besides, the frugal, utilitarian inside of me balked at spending $1,300 on a fridge. I’m barely home. When was I ever going to have enough food in the house to justify a $1,300 expense when I least expected and was least prepared for it?

To make matters worse, my kitchen appliances are all almond. It was a popular colour in the 80′s. It wasn’t boring old white, but it wasn’t one of those loud atrocious shades from the 70′s like burnt orange and avocado. It was subtle. It was classy. It was boring old beige, but no, it wasn’t boring or beige, because it was almond. Ooooooh! Almond!

Almond is now, apparently, declassé. Absolutely the enemy of chic. What’s in now? Bisque. Or, if you’re Maytag, Biscuit, which just cracks me up in all kinds of ways. But I still have a kitchen full of other appliances that work perfectly well that are almond, and to have a refrigerator in another colour would just look wrong.

So I discovered that I now had lots of chips stacked against me. I had to find a rare almond side-by-side, preferably 22 cubic feet or larger, icemaker, water and ice on the door (crushed ice not necessary) without superfluous shelves, drawers, filters, racks, and whatnot. For immediate delivery — I’ve been without a refrigerator for nearly three weeks, and I’m spending a fortune on takeout food and restaurants. I’ve had more pizza and Chinese than I care to think about. I want to be able to eat at home! I need to save some of this money — so that I can pay for this refrigerator!

I looked all day Friday and realised that the odds were not in my favour. I came home empty-handed, disappointed and glum. I was either going to have to bite the bullet and shell out far above my comfort zone, or I was going to have to lower my expectations. Neither option left me feeling very enthusiastic. So I decided to try once more, and went out yesterday, once more taking up the mantle and preparing to fight the good fight to get what I wanted, and lo and behold, at my last turn, a Best Buy (of all places) I found exactly what I wanted. Exactly.

And even though it’s a Maytag, it’s a discontinued model, so it is the now-dreaded Almond. No Biscuit for me!

It’s being delivered tomorrow.

Joy will be a cold Pepsi from my own refrigerator.