Humble Pie For Breakfast - Yum!

I'm still here! Just...wow, this summer is flying by. And we spent a couple of days this week getting ready for Theo's girlfriend to arrive. We hadn't met her yet, you see, and didn't want to make a bad impression by letting her see our usual slovenly ways. So we cleaned, and I bought fresh sheets for the guest bedroom, and we got rid of a few more things from our always-overflowing laundry room.

Remember the Great Basement Remodel of Winter 2017? You know, when Larry did his thing and tore out all the walls AND the floor and insulated all the walls (AND the floor) and we redid the bathroom so we no longer had to look at wallpaper from 1983 and avocado-green linoleum flooring from 1969?

Yeah, THAT remodel. Anyway, we must have inhaled too much drywall dust which went straight to our brains, because during that remodel we decided we didn't need to have a door to the utility/laundry room. You know, the room that holds not only our washer/dryer and second refrigerator and spare pantry items, but also everything that one would normally stick into a suburban garage (of which we have none) or workshop (ditto)?

That's a lot of stuff. But, no, we said; we wouldn't need a door because now everything was so beautifully organized and all the camping stuff would be in our under-the-stairs cubbyhole that our handyman carved out and we would never, ever let the laundry room situation get out of control again.

You know, you've got to admire how Larry and I, both at least half-a-century old, have retained our childlike naivete and optimism. It's cute, isn't it? Misguided, judging from the looks of our laundry room today, but still...cute.

DO NOT ask why there is a Christmas
ribbon wreath hanging on the bicycle.
 I DO NOT KNOW.

So, yeah, that was an extremely bad decision. But that isn't even why I've gathered you all here today. Rather, the reason we are here is to discuss my lovely, long-longed-for French-door refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom. Remember? I got it in November of 2016. In fact, I ordered it a few days before the presidential election and it arrived a few days after, and why I find that fact important, I am not sure.

Maybe because that refrigerator never quite worked right. I expected a fine-tuned, smoothly operating appliance and what I got was, well, a little different. Still, I ignored the problems. I thought, maybe all fridges are like this. Maybe everyone nowadays avoids putting items with high water content (like ALL PRODUCE and any eggs) anywhere near the back third of their refrigerator. Hey, I could live with that. I still had my lovely French doors and my beautiful pull-out freezer. AND an automatic ice maker! Life was good.

But things got colder. Even when I set the fridge temp as high as it could go, I couldn't use the back third of my fridge for anything but confectioner's sugar or other baking items. And produce on the top shelf (even in the front) started freezing, too. It had gotten to the point where I was lecturing family members on the exact placement of foodstuffs in the fridge, which really is not conducive to pleasant relationships, I must say.

So I was complaining about this sorry state of affairs to a neighbor who said, "Why don't you call and get it fixed? You have a protection plan." People, this struck me as novel an idea as that one about getting your car professionally cleaned every year. Seriously, I do not know what is wrong with my brain, that I don't think of these things myself. So I searched through my emails and managed to find my order confirmation number and the phone number to call...

And let's just pause and acknowledge that this was a minor miracle in and of itself, okay?

And I called and they set up an appointment for...today! "Ma'am, your repairman will be there between 8 and 12," they said. And I thought, Good - Theo and his girlfriend will be out doing tourist things by 9 or so - this won't disrupt anything.

Remember that childlike optimism we were talking about? I've got it in spades, apparently.

The repairman called at 7:30 this morning to announce his arrival. He came in while Theo and his girlfriend were still drinking their coffee and ordered me to empty the entire refrigerator in front of them. Then he pulled out all the glass shelves -- which I hadn't cleaned in, oh, quite a while -- and plopped them on the floor.

Shelves and food and humiliation, oh my!

But, wait - there's more!

Now, any long-time readers of this blog are aware of my refrigerator cleaning issues. They know about my salsa problem, they have read about the condiment overload troubles, they appreciate that I will never cook that zucchini in the bottom drawer before it rots. And, dare I say? You all have been downright supportive about it. At least, you've followed the dictum of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." No nasty comments, no boasting about your own spotless appliances...seriously, I've been uplifted and encouraged by everyone's empathy/considerate silence over the years.

And now here I was, in my own kitchen, facing an obvious sadist intent on exposing my shame to the very first serious girlfriend that Theo has brought home to meet the family. I vacuumed the interior and scrubbed glass shelves and threw out bags of liquified asparagus (I wish I were joking, but no) under not only the watchful eye of the heartless repairman but also the (probably horrified) eye of a potential future member of our family.

So I am here to tell you that yes, you CAN survive abject humiliation. It just isn't much fun, is all. But if you're really lucky? You end up with a very clean refrigerator as a consolation prize.

Any bets on how long it stays this way?