I would be bragging now if I wasn't so pissed off.
Why bragging? Because tonight I drove 20 miles, shopped for
and bought (on sale, no less), squeezed most of it into the Jeep and hauled it
20 miles home, by myself wrestled it out of the Jeep and into the house,
unpacked and installed a new refrigerator in less than four hours.
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| Meme from the Hillbilly Hangout facebook page |
Why pissed off? Because tonight I drove 20 miles, shopped
for and bought (on sale, no less), squeezed most of it into the Jeep and hauled
it 20 miles home, by myself wrestled it out of the Jeep and into the house,
unpacked and installed a new refrigerator in less than four hours.
It had to happen. Last year my grandson was born within days
of the distribution of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividends. That's the check
everyone gets once a year from royalties collected on the sale of Alaska oil. I
accused my daughter of the timing being more than a coincidence. I mean what kid
wouldn't want to be born on a day when grandpa was running around with an extra
thousand dollars in his pocket? [ An afterthought four years later: I didn't think about it at the time, but this is an annual event now, his birthday a week after the permanent fund check arrives!!!]
Jump ahead to this year. Tomorrow the state is supposed to
tell us how much this year's dividend will be, with distribution usually in the
first week of October.
So, today, my refrigerator blew its brains out. All that was
left was a condenser motor that wasn't doing any spinning or condensing but was
making the irritating hum of a frozen motor, and almost too hot to touch. Of
course two days ago I had packed a couple of hundred dollars worth of groceries
in it against the next two weeks. I only discovered it when I went for a little
of my no-fat, no-cholesterol frozen yogurt and poured it out into the bowl.
Double crap.
I headed out for the store for some dry ice thinking I could
pack the perishables into coolers and hold off for a couple of days. On the way,
calming down and thinking a bit I thought why not get a refrigerator coming my
way and still pack stuff in ice. Then when the store couldn’t deliver for a
week I thought maybe I would buy one of those 7-cubic-foot freezers and still
order the fridge. I tried a couple of more stores and then driving back to the
first I thought maybe I could pack a whole refrigerator into the Jeep.
Well as it turns out, most of it could fit and I bought a
couple of straps to secure it and headed home with half of it hanging out the back end of the car.
My back door is a straight shot to where the refrigerator
goes, but there are several large trees out there that might have blocked the way.
With some delicate maneuvering, and probably frightening the neighbors when my
headlights shined right into their back bedroom windows, I managed to make it
around the trees like a rodeo cowboy winding around barrels only slower all the
way to the porch. The deck of the Jeep was almost level with the deck of the
porch so I could just drag the fridge straight in through the door, stand it up
and start the install. Done and done and done.
It is now happily leveled and ensconced and humming away saving my groceries. Mostly I just want that yogurt to harden up. And I can only lament what could have been if just once I got to spend the Permanent Fund dividend on something fun. Have to admit, though, it is kind of fun moving into a new refrigerator.
An Addition: If you think it's a joke about the Permanent Fund and personal disasters, my daughter posted this on Twitter today: @tjonesak Just had a difficult day. Had to replace the furnace so lots of disruption.
What is the perm fund this year anyway?
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ReplyDeleteOh, Tim, I just can't stop laughing! And being impressed with your fridge wrestling skills. Not to mention your grandson's (clearly inherited) smarts. :)
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