This time, it’s not a new cat or dog. It’s a new fridge. The one that came with this house finally shot craps. It’s marginally working, keeping things frozen, and cold as need be, but the circuit board has been flipping out the past the past few days. By now, the thing’s probably 20 years old, and like a garage door opener with a dying circuit board, would cost as much to have repaired as getting a new one, so …
I’ve never had a refrigerator crap out on me before, but then again, I’ve never had one that was electronically controlled. I’ve always had basic mechanical workhorses that were on/off, with knob type temperature adjustments. Those never die.
Anyway, did my measurements, and checked out what I could get through the box stores, plus a local appliance dealer. that would fit. No way could I justify spending $9k, or even $3k on a fridge. I wanted a simple side-by-side model, and didn’t care whether it came with an ice maker or water dispenser. Settled on a Frigidaire model, on sale, with free delivery, but I had to pay an extra $25 to have them cart away the dying one. Would have had to pay the same $25 to have them move the old one into the annex, but if it finally did die, good luck finding someone to cart it away for less than twice that.
Still, the new one came to a hair under a grand, with tax. That price is more like it. I simply cannot justify forking out the bucks for a Maserati, when a Volvo suits my needs, if you catch my drift. If I decide to buy a fridge for the kitchen in the annex, a basic under/over mechanical model like we bought for our previous house can be had for ~$600-$700, delivered and installed. We mostly only use that kitchen for canning excess summer produce, and around the holidays when we need extra stove top burners, or an oven set to a different temperature than the turkey or ham.
The previous owners of this house offered to sell me all their moveable major appliances, some furniture, bar stools, etc. as a side deal from closing on the property. Took them up on the fridge, upright freezer, washer, and dryer, in the main house, and passed on everything else they had in the annex, and down by the pool. Although it has its own kitchen, the annex is really for sleepover guests to have their own “apartment,” instead of one of the bedrooms down the hall, and it’s where our basement “man cave” wet bar and game room are.
Delivery is scheduled for Thursday. I will receive a call Wednesday afternoon to give me a four hour window for the delivery. That gives me plenty of time to shift freezer goods to the other freezer, and refrigerator goods to either our bar fridge, or coolers with blue ice packs. Nothing’s going to spoil during the changeover.
On a different topic, I sent mom a fruit basket for her birthday. It ended up containing more citrus fruit than advertised, so, since she won’t eat it, she gave me a few pieces, plus the kiwis, and the basket in which it arrived. She kept the pears and apples, and will give away the rest of the mandarin oranges to someone else. We had to go out and fetch bottled water for her, so I decided to see if the grocery store had corn cushions, too, which, oddly enough, are hard to find in quantity except online. They had some, so I grabbed all three packages off the rack for her. She always pays us back for the water, or sends us over with money to fetch it. She wanted to pay for the corn cushions, too, even though she didn’t ask us to get any, but she settled for “Absolutely not, mom. Happy birthday! Consider it a trade for half your fruit, plus the basket.” Really, it was more like 1/4 of the fruit, but I was trying to make my case for not taking money for something she didn’t ask me to get for her.
The older you get, the more you appreciate presents that have practical uses, I guess. I would have been so crestfallen as a child to open a Christmas present, only to find a pair of socks, but now, a pair of thick hiking socks would be great.
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