Blink.

Dec 07, 2007 10:21

So, perhaps I will start my sad and sordid tale by travelling back in time, all the way back to the wee hours of Thursday morning.  I had an excessively restless night and had wandered about the house, checking everything multiple times. You know that feeling - you get up out of a warm bed to see if you turned off the oven and stove... and you haven't had them on for weeks.  After a few dozen trips around the house, I finally convinced myself that everything was as it should have been.

Well, I had that little feeling that something was just not *right*.  And I had no idea what it was.

When I got home last night I think I figured it out.

I reach into the fridge, and pull out a brick of cheese.  Hmmm... perhaps it's time to clean the fridge, something doesn't smell that great in there.  I put it on the mental list of things to do on the weekend.

I then pour myself a glass of water, and decide that ice would be a nice idea  I reach into the freezer and remove an ice-cube tray, slopping warm water all over myself.

Blink.

Pause.

Blink.

Blink.

I look down at my hand holding the now empty icecube tray and review the order of operations.  Open freezer. Remove ice cube tray.  Pour *warm* water all over myself and the floor. This is decidedly odd.  Normally I slop water when I am going from the sink to the freezer - the opposite direction.  It's rather rare for me to slop warm water on myself from an ice cube tray out of the freezer.  Yet, as I stood dripping I had enough evidence that I had broken a few of the rules of thermodynamics.

Houston.  We have a problem.

I open up the freezer again, and review the situation.  Yup, it's warm in there.  Really warm in there. A little warmer than the rest of the house.  I close the freezer door, wait a few seconds, and try it again.  Yup, it's still warm in there.  I reach down and open up the fridge.  Yup.  Same problem.

The light is on.  The fridge is making normal happy *whirr* noises - you know, the sound of a compressor cooling... or in this case warming.  It's obviously blowing air past the compressor which is working overtime.  And rather than finding something blissfully cool in the coils - it's a little warmer than that.  Obviously something BAD happened.

So I did what any normal person would do.   I shrugged.  Then I unpacked the warm and soggy contents of the freezer and most of the fridge into the nearest garbage can, unplugged the unit, and went to bed.  Ten minutes later I thought better of my actions, got up out of bed, padded into the kitchen and put the garbage bag outside in the snow.  I returned to the horizontal position.

Now I'm wondering how long it's been down - I did go into it yesterday but I don't recall checking for temperature.  It's not one of those things that I usually do when I open up the fridge.  But I'm wondering if my subconscious was trying to tell me something. Or maybe I had picked up on the fact that it was running non-stop, not doing its normal cycle.

Today I called up a couple of repair techs.  I waved my hands in the air describing the rectangular shape of the fridge.  They asked the age - it's still new!, I proclaim.  I think for a minute, do a quick count and proudly announce it's only 14 years old.  Old enough to have Freon.  Old enough that it can not be recharged.  Old enough that it's not worthwhile fixing.

Welcome to our throw-away society.  I'm fridge shopping this weekend.

Dear Universe.  Please go piss on someone else for a change. 
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