Need a fridge?

We really needed a new refrigerator. Our old one (probably at least fifteen years old), an ivory-colored side-by-side with brown door handles, was icing over and preventing the freezer door from shutting completely. I was out of town the week that my parents bought a new fridge. But I sure heard (pun intended) about it once I got home…

The fridge was a white Whirlpool that they got for a great deal; pearl white with French doors and a freezer on the bottom (I sound like one of those people on a home makeover show now…I’m really not that into refrigerators). My mom loved it. The interior was spacious. There was no icemaker on the door to freeze it over.

But then, there was the sound.

It started out as a low buzzing. We would sit in the living room with the TV muted and listen intently: “Do you hear that?” “Is that the refrigerator?”

The sound grew and grew until the refrigerator was constantly buzzing. Mom get fed up with it and called a repairman. When he left, the fridge started making another noise in addition to the buzzing. So Mom called a second guy. His helpful words were “all energy-efficient refrigerators sound like this.” (My mother found it hard to believe that all modern refrigerators hummed and buzzed like an old car on the brink of falling apart.)

By the time we got to the third repairman, Mom had visited a site that played malfunctioning refrigerator sounds (yes, such sites do apparently exist) and determined that our unit had a sound that none other had — and thus was a lemon. Repairman Number Three then informed us that Repairman Number Two had unplugged something that had made it louder. So Repairman Number Three kindly plugged the unplugged cord back in, and guess what? The fridge grew even louder.

At that point my mom was ready to take an ax to the refrigerator. An hour would not pass by in which she wouldn’t ask if you had heard the fridge, if that noise was new, if it was really loud or if it was just her, or some similar question.

The decision was made to return the Noisy Fridge to Lowe’s, and get a better one from Home Depot. HD would deliver the new fridge on Monday and Lowe’s would pick up the old one on Tuesday. We were supposed to get another French door fridge (this time an LG model, since my mom researched extensively and found out this was the best brand).

All went according to plan until Mom spotted a water dispenser on the side of the fridge as the delivery guys wheeled it in to the kitchen. They had not delivered the French door model she ordered. They delivered a side-by-side.

Panic ensued as Mom tried to make a decision: refuse the new one, or keep it? If she refused it and Lowe’s came the next day to pick up Old Noisy, we would have to learn how to make our own icebox of sorts, so she decided to keep it until Friday, when HD was scheduled to deliver the correct refrigerator.

But guess what? Lowe’s didn’t come today (Tuesday), so we still have two refrigerators in our kitchen. Two twenty-six-cubit-foot refrigerators. I hadn’t realized before just how large refrigerators are. They are the size of at least two people width-wise. They are very hard to walk around. They are cold and steely and massive and have long cords that dangle from them like tails.

We had our internet upgraded today, and I can only imagine what the service guys thought when they walked into our house and saw one refrigerator sitting haphazardly in the dining room and another in the kitchen. (In addition to the refrigerators, we also have a massive heap of beadboard and baseboards leaning up against the walls, a penciled line running three feet high all the way around the dining room, and no baseboards in the dining room in preparation for the beadboard we’re going to install.)

So while we may have two refrigerators for now, at least we have faster internet with which I can relay to you this incredibly confusing and crazy story. (And if you read this far and aren’t asleep yet, I commend you.)