A big shiny new frig

So the other day the refrigerator went kaput. I discovered this when I took a big swig of milk out of the jug just like I always do in the morning when no one is looking and it was warm as dog pee.

“Honey,” I gargled to my wife. “We need a new refrigerator.”

The problem with getting a new refrigerator isn’t that you have to go out an buy a new one. The problem is cleaning the old one out. I swear to God, we had at least 50 half-full of jars of salsa. I know because I washed them all out. Some were growing green fuzz. In others, the green fuzz had died and turned black.

So the boy and I piled into the old diesel pickup and drove to Home Depot where I decided it would be a good idea to clean the 10 inches of snow in the bed out in the parking lot before we went frig shopping.

Once I got that done and moved some other junk around I purchased a great big beautiful stainless steel refrigerator that was something like half off, which meant it cost 10 bucks under $900.

The nice guy at Home Depot wrapped the new frig in multiple layers of plastic wrap and two kids promptly set it down in the bed of the pickup and we were off.

Now they offered free delivery, but I figured, how hard can it be to put a refrigerator in the house? Why me and the boy and the wife will have it in no time, I figured.

Things went badly just backing the truck up to the door and then got worse when the frig fell of the ramps I had set up. But they really went south when we wrestled the damn thing to the door and discovered that lo and behold, they make frigerators that don’t actually fit in houses.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking ... Chris, just run an extension cord out to the porch, that’s what we did.

But I read the manual (I know, I know, who reads manuals?) and it said that a frig should not be left in a room where it routinely gets under 50 degrees.

Last I checked it was 1 below on my porch.

So we took the front door off the house and then took the handles off the frig and Voila! It fit through the door with just one small dent in the side of our brand spanking new frig.

Then we wheeled it into the living room and through the dining room and to the kitchen and guess what?

It didn’t even come close to fitting through the kitchen door, even with the handles off.

I know, I know, the easy solution would have been to simply run an extension cord into the dining room — I mean, lots of people do it, I told the wife.

She would have none of that, so we ended up tearing the kitchen door and all the wood frame off as well. The frig fit like a charm. Now we can go back to filling it up with half full jars of salsa like a good little family.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.