Thursday, August 12, 2004
 

News from the Homefront

News byte #1: Well, I'm still here.

Our 27-year-old refrigerator has been a water feature (to use HGTV language) in our kitchen for many years now; for reasons no one has been able to discern, it leaks water profusely and causes substantial little lakes in the bottom of the unit. After enduring several years of this, complete with frequent mopping, we decided to get a new machine.

So we haul off to Sears and purchase a brand-spanking-new, shiny-bright refrigerator, which qualifies as a Major Event in this household. A few days later, two guys (we'll call them Cro and Magnon for the sake of privacy) deliver it. At the time, just my mother and I were here. I spent a great deal of time enduring the not-so-subtle flirting from the younger of the pair (he must have been desperate).

The real gem of the day, though, came when we asked if there was anything we could do:

Us: Can we do anything to help?
Cro: Naw, just stand there and look pretty!
Us: . . .

I ground my teeth; after all, looking pretty can be stressful work. It took them an hour and a half to get the refrigerator set up. The handles had to be reversed (the salesman at Sears, who we'll call Bubba-Bo-Bob-Dwayne, promised that they'd come reversed, but they didn't), and Magnon (the flirter) managed to install the handle upside-down.

Time passes. They finish. I inquire as to where the ice maker is (we've never had one before, so I had assumed that it was installed separately). Cro gets on his cell phone and eventually divines that we've been sold the wrong refrigerator.

Upshot: The Dynamic Duo will be back and some point today, bearing a new refrigerator, with icemaker. Fortunately, the guy (who we'll call Dale, because that's his name) who came to run the water line from the sink to the refrigerator had already come, so at least the icemaker will be ready to hook up and go. In the meantime, we've been using the wrong-new refrigerator, since they'd already taken ours apart (and Magnon wanted to keep it, anyway).

So, two new refrigerators in a week! Now, if I could only keep my piggy self out of it, we'd be good to go.

Reading: Richard Wright, The Outsider
Listening: Lucinda Williams, World without Tears
Current Obsession: staining and painting furniture
Alice: just produced a stinky poop

Elvisette philosophized at 8:05 AM