kaput

Do you ever wonder why you woke up some days? Today is one of those. I came down stairs this morning to tend to the morning ritual of letting the dogs out and feeding them when I noticed water underneath the fridge.

My first thought was that I had overwatered my plant that sits right there in the corner, but alas, the "water-catcher thingy" was bone dry. Could the dishwasher have malfunctioned? I ran it last night.

And then I saw the puddling of water in the drip tray in the fridge door where the ice dispenser is. Still quite confused, I opened the freezer to see the springtime thaw. No arctic chill when I opened the door. Just water running down the walls of the freezer and chunks of melting ice falling to the bottom. Crap! I had just done a Costco run last night and so I loaded up on chicken, hamburger, frozen veggies, etc.

Scratching my head wondering how on earth had I pissed off Karma to deserve such retribution.

And so began the arduous process of taking everything out of the freezer, all the while the dogs are running around licking water and ice off the floor and Rick is scurrying out the door to be at work by 9 am.

I take a moment to pause and send out a may-day email to my manager to let her know I've got a royal mess on my hands and it may be awhile before I can get into the office. Then I notice on Zoe's hind foot, a clump of something. Realizing she'd back into her own poop this morning, she was now tracking it around the house. Not really having enough patience to deal with it then, I put her on her leash while I returned to attending to the mess at hand.

I opened the fridge and realized that it too was also not working. Seriously, this is not funny. I call my sister to see if she might have room in her fridge -- last ditch effort to salvage the hundreds of dollars of food I had purchased the night before. No answer. I call Redheadmomma. No answer. I leave messages with both.

What to do? What to do? Well, at the very least, I need to take a shower this morning. Afterwards I finally hear from Andrea and she's cleaned out her fridge so I can bring our food over. Temporary cohabitation. She also says that Jeff has access to a fridge that we can borrow until we can figure out what we need to do. What a relief!

I pack up the car. I feel like I am life flighting donor organs to a recipient. With the Jeep all packed up with the perishables, I made my way over to their condo. Andrea had already left for work, but she left the door unlocked so I could get in. All unloaded. Whew~

So I guess I can get into the office today at a decent hour and then fixate on what to do next about my non-operating refrigerator. Since I bought it second-hand nearly four years ago, I don't have a warranty on it. Nor do I know the first thing about fridge repair. Do I call our a Whirlpool repairman who will charge me $400 to tell me it has given up the ghost? Or do I just cut my losses and get myself a middle of the road replacement? Uggh. So not what I wanted to be dealing with this week. The perils of home ownership.

Maybe I should listen to those commercials and get a Maytag.