31 December 2008

Christmas - New Year's Present


Let's go back a few days. it's Christmas Eve. I've been out most of the day running errands and then having dinner with our good friends Ted, SuAnne, Doug, and Loretta. The roads were iffy, but there was no trouble driving with Russ' all wheel dive vehicle. Home about 8:30 I debated about going to Christmas Eve Liturgy at ten o'clock. I had this nagging refrain in my head....

"I'm gonna die!"

No, it definitely wasn't the unborn Baby Jesus talking to me. I figured it was just me being nervous about driving at that hour, knowing I'd be comming home at maybe two in the morning. So, plucky gal that I am deep inside, I bundled up and conquered that fear. The roads were actually better than an hour before!

Getting home at a wild-and-crazy 4 AM-ish (I helped clean up after the feast) I discovered that it wasn't me worrying about imminent death. Apparently refrigerators have souls too! Think of a quiet version of the sound of a truly dead alternator that still acknowledges your request to get the car going...

Wuh.....

Wuh...

Wuh...

Nada. No cooling, no light, no high-tech readout. Just, "Wuh..."


Christmas Day... Clear out what's worth keeping, pile a bunch of snow into the cooler, and worry about it later. Not like there'll be anyone at the Sears call center! Or the only grocery that sells dry ice.

On the 26th I finally bought nine pounds of solid CO2, learned not to touch it even through the bag, and cleaned the fridge interior. top to bottom. CO2 works just as well as one can hope, by the way. That bit of chicken had to moved down to unfreeze it.

Today... New Year's Eve... I finally got the repair man out. Good thing the fridge is still under warrantee. I presumed the problem was my compressor. That's what usually goes out, right? Not at all. It was the motherboard! Didn't even consider that it had one of those. Wow!

Russ... buying the extended warrantee just saved us about $500! The part was nearly $300 by itself. But for you.... nada. And now we have a working fridge again.

And we now know it takes about nine pounds of CO2 a day to keep the fridge cold.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll take my computers digital and my refrigerators analog, please.

April Bourgois said...

I'm with you, Eric but it's pretty difficult to find an analog fridge these days. What I really wanted was a better version of my old fridge from Scotland but it's impossible to find small & efficiently arranged in the USA. UGH!!!

At least it's working and now it's spic & span.