Christmas Fridge

When my appliances start to whine, so do I, in harmony. Our refrigerator started up a throaty moan whenever the compressor ran and then the peanut butter got runny and the dairy butter got soft. So my good wife and I went looking for a fridge today, six days before Christmas.

I had dug up the papers on our present fridge to check the ten year warranty. That ran out thirteen months ago. So, thought I, let's get the darn thing fixed. That has to be cheaper than buying a new one. I called up the only Appliance Repair in town. Nope not worth fixing. They can't remember the last time they fixed a fridge. I guess it isn't an appliance. Silly me.

We had paid $1765 for it because we had wanted a bottom freezer model and that was pretty pricey in 2003. Today the prices ran from $900 to call-your-swiss-banker. For 900 bucks you could get the plain jane with little more than camp-cooler convenience. Now the new fridges have "French Doors" that have "gallon shelves", starting at $1299. I started to think that my gallon shelves could hold that gallon of Andrés Baby Duck just fine. At $1599, the ice maker was plumbed into your house and if you wanted water in the door, well, $1899.

At $1999, you had mobile phone access to your refrigerator. To talk to your turnips? "Is it too nippy my darlings? Let me adjust the temperature". Seriously, the price kept climbing from there. There were doors that had doors; they had crispers and fruit fresheners; fruit unspoilers; meat drawers; dairy drawers; lighted drawers; halogen lights and LED lights.

At the entrance to the store they had the built-in mother of all refrigerators. It had French doors but each door was four feet across and six feet high. When you opened the doors, lights flashed and angels sang. The inside was larger than our main bathroom. The store had a room behind a velvet curtain where your banker could discuss the terms. Yowser. Capitalism at its best.

The last time I built a house, about thirty years ago, all the framing lumber for the house cost $800. The whole heating system was a thousand bucks. The entire plumbing - pipes, fixtures, and labour was $1500. The entire fireplace and chimney came in at $1500. Small wonder that new homes here regularly go into the half million and up range, if the fridge starts out at a grand.

The store that had all of these fridges also had a fridge repair guy onsite. Cal. Now my best friend. He asked whether the freezer was still freezing. Yes. Then it's just a defrost problem. The cold air is being blocked from getting to the fridge part. Don't buy a new one yet until you turn it off and let it thaw out. Cal just made my Christmas happier.