Who Knew?

We have had our fridge for almost 12 years. It came new with the house. I loved my new Whirlpool side-by-side, ice and water dispensing wonder of the kitchen gods. Notice that was past tense?

Through its 12 years of service the fridge has taken a beating… literally, unfortunately. In my absence, a child of mine, who was old enough to know better, spent an evening taking shots at my beloved refrigerator with a hockey stick and puck. He didn’t even bother trying to cover his tracks by wiping off the black puck marks in all 27 dents. It was a low point of my summer… I cried. Remember, I loved my fridge.

Then the ice maker stopped producing ice. We had a handyman come and “fix” it. Seems he wasn’t as handy as we hoped. To replace the whole ice maker it would suck $158 from my clothes shopping fund (because we didn’t have a ice-maker-replacement-fund at the time)… so I bought plastic ice cube trays at Walmart. BAM. Bring on six more flowy tank tops in bright colors with fringe on the bottom and bling on the front. Priorities, people.

Next the water dispenser stopped pouring water into my cup. I realize this is a first world problem. (No hate mail, please.) This was a while ago and if my memory serves me correctly, it was around the same time the stinky slime puddle was discovered growing three colors of mold under the fridge. Maybe during the clean-up (that made me gag profusely) the hose to the water dispenser got kinked or cut or removed at that time. Who knew?

Finally, the magnetism on the fridge door weakened so badly that if you shut the freezer, the fridge door opened just a smidge. Somehow this often happened after a son of mine made his midnight raid on the fridge and I would find the door still open in the morning. A smidge is a big enough gap on a side-by-side Whirlpool refrigerator to cause havoc inside the once-cold-box. The motor kicked into high gear, due to the warm kitchen air penetrating the cold barrier. This caused all of my vegetables in the two bottom crisper drawers to freeze solid… and the milk jugs in the door were warmer than cold. Ewwww.

After ten years of owning our home with 8 1/2 major appliances (Is a microwave major?) my thrift-minded and possibly doomsday-anticipating husband purchased a warranty for all major appliances. However, as our fridge was deteriorating before my hazel eyes, I did not remember the warranty purchase. I simply put the vegetables on the top shelf and continued filling ice cube trays.

Two weeks back, my handsome husband handed me a two-year-old warranty agreement and suggested I call to get the fridge fixed. WHAT? Maybe he was trying to get the most out of his $75 call-out fee and waited for three things to be wrong with the fridge. Again, who knew?

Last week the friendly repair man came, looked the fridge over, I paid him $75 and he left. Yesterday, he showed up again and fixed ALL the problems with my fridge, with the exception of the hockey puck dents. BUT, the water tasted horrible coming out of the dispenser… and I knew the new ice cubes were being made with the same horrible water.

Today I looked up the water filter number and ordered a new one on Amazon prime. It will be at my house in two days. BAM!

All this to ask, DID YOU KNOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CHANGING YOUR FRIDGE WATER FILTER EVERY SIX MONTHS? Who knew? We have saved money on 23 replacements filters that we never bought…. that is $456.55! Saving cash like a boss.

 

 

 

The OTHER side

A week ago I had the opportunity to visit a supremely large mega company (starts with an A and rhymes with camazon) and volunteer to wrap gifts to help raise funds for my friend who has her kids in gymnastics.  To my recollection, this was my first visit not only to the OTHER side of the tracks here in Phoenix but to a factory with a gajillion employees. The security was HIGH… like an airport with scanners and the wand in case you beeped going through the scanner… which I did, of course.  It was my big blingy watch.

There was quite the list of contraband items that could not be brought into the plant…. common items… purses, phones, food, jackets, backpacks, cameras, and drinks.  This did freak out my kids a bit as I didn’t answer my phone for five hours…. just like back in the olden days before cell phones.  What in the world did we do back then without constant access to our parents???

As volunteers, we were paid 75 cents per gift that we wrapped.  We were in the section for volunteers…. because we were volunteering.  Wrappers (not to be confused with rappers) stood in pods of six with our backs to each other… next to two conveyor belts.  The top one brought the boxes to us… the lower one we use to send the wrapped gifts on their merry way.  It was exactly like the factory where LaVerne and Shirley worked in Milwaukie.  Funny thing was… the other side of the conveyor belt were the paid employees… working slower than molasses in January after the front door’s been left open for six hours.  I found it all so interesting…. there was a huge chart on the wall with Star Performers, Rising Stars and Falling Stars…. with the NAMES of the people written right there for all to see.  It reminded me of the reading groups in first grade… the eagles, the bluebirds and the chickens.  Even the kids in the chicken group knew they weren’t eagles… and probably never would be.

A kind young lad was assigned to our area to refill anything we ran out of, namely, ribbon, paper and DVD covers.  After our first few encounters with this chap, we assumed he was either in the Falling Stars group or soon to be headed that way.  He was a few flapjacks short of a pancake breakfast.  At one point he came to the end of our row and asked if we wanted to see something funny.  No one said anything, so he proceeded to take down the sign from the end of our row that read “Volunteer Section.”  And he laughed and pointed at it…. as if to say, “Who would be stupid enough to volunteer to work here????”  None of us volunteers laughed.  The gal next to him kindly informed him, “We are volunteers.”  He was dumbstruck momentarily and then hung the sign back up and wandered off.  DOH!

Visiting the factory was a bit like going to the county fair.  Those who were not volunteers had a plethora of tattoos, piercings, missing teeth and baggy drawers.  It’s not often I realize how blessed I am simply to have a mouthful of teeth.  I thought this factory would be a good place to have my kids visit to see where they might end up if they don’t finish high school. 

Being the ever inquisitive person that I am, I found it fascinating to see what people were buying and sending to others at Christmas time.  There were also lots of Hanakah gifts.  My personal favorite was a book on how to butcher a pig and the card read, “Happy Hanakah!”  Hahahahaha!

To end this fascinating story… I wrapped 154 gifts in five hours… my friend wrapped 161.  But she was next to the conveyor belt and I had to walk back and forth each and every time.  She may have wrapped more gifts, but I could count the five hours as a cardiovascular workout.  :o)

HELLO! and come in for some hot cocoa!

Many disturbances in the force have contributed to my blogging absence… including, but not limited to, Christmas, my sister and her family visiting from Washington, Christmas Eve service, an Elvis Dinner Theater double date, Jesus’ Birthday party, cookie decorating, shopping, wrapping, Chelsea (Larisa’s friend) visiting for a week, and an Amazon gift wrapping experience that made me appreciate my life. (That warranted a blog all by itself!) Oh, and I almost forgot the most important reason I have not been on MSJ…. my laptop got a virus and wouldn’t let me get online.  It’s all better now, thanks to Howard.

Many Christmas blessings transpired which I have been eager to share.  #1 (and most important) I got a text from my friend Jill on Dec. 22nd near midnight that read “A friend has two free baby wiener dogs. Did you get Larisa a gift yet?”  That was it.  I was ruined.  Have you seen dachshund puppies?  They are irresistible… even if you have sworn by the Virgin Mother and the baby Jesus child that you will never go through puppy-raising a second time in your entire life.  My 18-year-old daughter has wanted a wiener dog for years.  She has a dog.  But she wanted a wiener dog.  I’ve said NO for years.  She has taped pictures of wiener dogs on my bedroom door.  She has posted wiener dog pictures on my facebook page.  She even doggy-sits wiener dogs… and brings them over to show me how adorable they are.  I finally broke down and told her I would buy a wiener dog for her as a wedding gift.  (She doesn’t even have a love interest at the moment… and as I said previously, she’s only 18.)  I thought it was a great compromise.  Then came the text.  I didn’t say anything, I simply showed the text to my husband.  We both raised our eyebrows and shook our heads.  We were thinking the same thing….. FREE…. and our little Colombian princess would love to have a puppy to play with.  It could be a doggy for both of our girls to share.  Then when Larisa goes to college, Nora is still here to clean up the back yard of doggy doodoo.  Perfect.

I called another friend who received a baby wiener dog for Christmas last year…. and didn’t keep it.  I wanted to know why.  Her answer didn’t help me.  She didn’t have time to train him.  Well, I’m home all the time… with nothing to do.  Perfect.  I started to list off all the things we would need to purchase for the puppy…. doggy door, crate, gate, etc.  She piped in with a FREE doggy door and crate.  Perfect.

Christmas Eve at approximately 11:59 and 1/2 Rick gave his blessing for the acquisition of the baby wiener dog.  Oh, were our girls going to be thrilled.  A few glitches have occurred.  It took us so long to decide, the puppy missed ride #1 from California to Phoenix.  Ride #2 is on Jan. 3rd.  At least that gives us a week before we start school again!  Here are the girls when they heard the new puppy news:

Shocked and amazed.  It was priceless.  We only have a few blurry pictures from which to choose a new family pet… and they are from a cell phone.  We don’t have a name chosen yet, and Larisa is leaning toward the bigger brown puppy not the smaller black puppy.  I’ll keep you posted and hopefully get some blog-worthy photos.

I’ll save #2 and #3 Christmas blessings for other blogs.  Needless to say… not much else could beat a Christmas puppy… and it isn’t even home yet.  (I’m seeing this as my ticket to new carpet… in a year!)