Saturday 27 February 2016
Life-Editing for Idiots
A difficult week at Hedges Towers.
The primary culprit was the fridge. It had been over-iceing for quite a long while, so that every time I opened the freezer compartment, I expected to find David Attenborough and a camera team filming the next series of Frozen Planet. On Saturday night, while watching Trapped, the fridge started making alarming noises best described as a rhythmical throbbing coupled with grinding its teeth. I applied the usual technical response ... kicking the door, which shut it up. Next morning, I discovered that it had shut up permanently and ice melt was occurring in its northern hemisphere.
So to John Lewis, where we discovered that they don't make small under the counter fridges with freezers in them any more. Or rarely. It seems that the 'modern' way now is to have a 'larder fridge' and a separate freezer. We don't understand this at all. Why on earth would anyone choose to have two gadgets? We don't want two fridges. We don't have space. We don't have a larder (take me to your larder...). Nor do we have room for the gigantic American-style fridge freezer keep-a-body-in-it units that seemed to be the main items on show. Eventually after much searching, we narrowed it down to a choice of one Zanussi model, which we bought. Hobson's choice.
Were that not disaster enough, the cheap why-did-I-buy-it Nokia phone suddenly went on strike and refused to pass on texts. Which I didn't know until a friend rang me to ask why I hadn't replied to one. Tried the usual method - turning it off and then on. Didn't respond. Finally levered the back off with a knife, took the whole thing apart and reinserted its bits. Phone wouldn't start as it insisted there was now no sim card. Even though there was, and I showed it the sim card to prove it.
So to the phone shop, where the kindergarten-aged assistant informed me accusingly that I had the wrong sim card. Thus apparently it was my fault. New card inserted, the other Grumpy Old Sod and I decided to test it, so he rang me and lo and behold the phone worked. Trouble was, we then got so engrossed in having a good moan that we ended up walking the length of the high street side by side ranting to each other on our phones. Must have looked very odd.
On Wednesday, the new fridge will arrive. We are crossing our fingers that it fits into the space under the counter. We did measure the space, but who knows, perhaps since then someone has redesigned centimetres to make them more ''modern'', so possibly it won't.
(I'm saving the Le Creuset coffee cups incident, the mice and the mislaid bus pass for another occasion. You can only handle so much.)
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A brilliant snapshot of life in all it's complicated modernity.
ReplyDeleteI thank you.
DeleteIn Portugal we have a small L shaped kitchen. One part of the L is extremely narrow. It contains a broom cupboard and the washing machine but first you have to pass the massive deep American style fridge/freezer. My OH cannot squeeze past so only I can wash clothes & find brooms. Unfortunately the fridge/freezer, which came with the house, is in perfect condition so I'd better not put on any inches.
ReplyDeletesell it..... or murder people and store their bodies....
DeleteFabulous day-in-the-life post. The image of you and OH walking the High Street side by side talking to each other on your phones will have me giggling for a while yet. Priceless!
ReplyDeleteCome on, CarolStar, how could you leave the mice out?? I shall now be lurking on your blog to see what happened there, not to mention the mislaid bus pass (can anything else go wrong?). As for the fridge, I too have been looking for a small one with a freezer compartment, and like you, I can't find one! My old fridge has lost its handle and a foot, so is slightly dismembered. It still works, but starts defrosting after a good wobble, so I come home to floods. And I don't have room for anything like a larder fridge either. My barge is only the size of the average larder anyway! I love the image of you two ranting to each other on the phone..Looking forward to the next instalment now....
ReplyDeleteFridges are a pain. D has a large fridge freezer...half filled coz they can't afford to fill it..what's the POINT?
DeleteMy D has the same. The fridge part is full of the normal stuff, but the freezer is almost empty!
DeleteOh Carol, so funny. I can only imagine the scene as you and OH rant your way up the high street. Can't wait for part two!!
ReplyDeleteWe suddenly realised what we were doing!! But we were a good way up the street before sanity caught up with us...
DeleteI feel exhausted after reading all this. You do know misfortune comes in threes don't you...
ReplyDeleteThey come in coaches here...
DeleteWhat a week!
ReplyDeleteIf Andri had had my larder fridge, he would not have had to use the fish factory and Trapped would probably be over by now.
ReplyDeleteGreat fun to read your work. Delicious juxtaposition of humour and the everyday madness and annoyances of life. Especially loved the descriptor "keep-a-body-in-it". Thank you.
ReplyDeleteEntertaining read but like a good programme it ended too soon. I wanted more though that said I will be laughing to myself all day on this. Thanks Carol
Deletethere may well be more...there is certainly material
DeleteI had a similar 'why don't they make small fridges any more' challenge when my old one packed up. What do people put in the big ones? There are millions of us living alone, and I can only assume people fill them with stuff that can live perfectly well in a cupboard.
ReplyDeletewe managed ur early marriage with a teeny tiny plug on one... was perfectly alright and we didn't end up having to throw away food that had been lurking at the back for months, coz there wasn't really any 'back'.
DeleteGreat stuff, Hedges! Walking to and from the fridge is the only exercise I enjoy!...
ReplyDeleteOh dear I feel your pain. I hope the fridge fits.
ReplyDeleteDelightful slice of life.
ReplyDeletemodern life, eh? I'm reminded of a comment from another writer, Douglas Adams, about it: *new technology - that's the stuff that doesn't work yet*
ReplyDeleteDoes the Fridge fit/work now? Just wondering...I love the minutae of domestic life & you describe it so well..although I got bored washing the kitchen floor yesterday.😊
ReplyDelete