Time for a new fridge ~ my column from Sunday's paper

My grandmother used to tell me of life in the South before electricity and modern conveniences. They kept some of their food in a well in the summer to keep it cold. We could have used a well this week. As always, there’s a story behind it.

I like my coffee, lawsuit hot…so hot that it removes a layer of enamel from my teeth and takes the hide off my tongue. Jilda, on the other hand, likes her java much cooler.

Monday morning when the coffee finished dripping, I opened the bedroom door and called to my sleeping bride in soft soothing tones. Are you ready for coffee?

She mumbles when she first wakes up. No one of this world can understand what she’s saying. It sounds almost as if she’s speaking in tongues, but she gets out of bed.

She doesn’t really stumble into the living room. It’s more like she careens off houseplants, the chifforobe and the cedar chest.

Once in the living room, she sat silently for a while with unfocused eyes. When she reached for her cup, it was still too hot, so she wobbled into the kitchen. Reaching into the freezer side of the fridge for a couple of cooling cubes, she stopped cold.

It took her a second to realize the icemaker wasn’t working and that she was standing in a puddle of water.

Suddenly, I understood exactly what she was saying. “Our fridge is dead!”

I went in the kitchen hoping it was something simple, but when I rolled it from against the wall, there was a small puddle of what looked like oil. It didn’t take a rocket surgeon to know that baby was dead.

Soon we were flipping through Consumer Reports and searching the web for a new fridge. We hoped we could find one that didn’t require us to mortgage the house.

A call to the local big-box store and we found exactly the unit we wanted. I was about to give them my credit card until I heard them say we can have it here in seven days. I explained that I would be killed and my body dumped in a local strip pit if it took seven days to get a fridge.

Then, we drove to Sides TV and Appliances and found the unit in the color we wanted. As it turns out, a mortgage wasn’t required.

A few minutes later, the new fridge was following us home like a puppy. We’d gotten about halfway home when a troubling thought crossed my mind. I looked over to Jilda and asked, “Did you measure the old fridge?”

“I thought you did.”

I hadn’t.

When we got home and rolled the old unit out of it’s nesting place between a wall and our kitchen cabinets and rolled the new one in place, it was about an inch too wide. Our hearts sank.

Our nephew Haven, whom I ALWAYS call to help me with stuff like this, stood there in silence for a long time.

I was trying to figure out how to break the news to George Sides Jr. that they were going to have to bring us another fridge and pick up the one they’d just delivered. Fret, fret, fret.

Just then, Haven said, “I think I can make this baby fit.” He got his hammer along with a screwdriver and a special saw. Soon there was sawdust, chips and pieces of molding all over the kitchen floor.

After about an hour, we pushed the fridge into its cubbyhole and it fit like a latex glove.

A while later, we heard ice cubes clattering in the icemaker and the sound was like music to our ears.