fridge, problems
5 June 2006
Last evening I returned home to my apartment from Boston and my reunion and began cleaning. Now that I’m living alone, I feel almost like a homeowner. Previously, I was happy if nothing else was living in my apartment aside from my roommate Brian and I. Now, every item in the medicine cabinet must be facing label-out in alphabetical order and the pubic hairs, which for so long were staples on our coffee table, have been Fantastiked away.
Part of the cleaning involved the fridge – throwing out both my old food and Brian’s old food. This did not take very long, since our fridge is usually completely empty, aside from Friday nights when it is filled with Pabst, leftovers, a pizza, whatever we can mix with vodka, and usually something horribly gross (band-aids,Q-tips, condoms, etc). After I trashed all the old food, I went to the super market to buy some new groceries.
[Seriously, you have not lived until you've masturbated into a cold condom. You're welcome.]
I admit, I got a little out of hand at the supermarket. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always have a (mental) list, which is comprised of:
- chocolate milk
- skim milk
- cereal
- ice cream (one pint of Cookies n Cream and one exotic pint)
- frozen pizza
But last night, flushed with feelings of independence and "living single," I went on a shopping spree. In addition to extra cleaning products, I dropped $140 on all sorts of garbage that I will never eat, including but not limited to:
- organic broccoli bites (which can not be microwaved and so are useless to me)
- stuffed shrimp
- meatless meat crumbles (?)
- fake chicken patties
- three different kinds of pot pies
- regular chocolate milk AND soy chocolate milk
- a two pound tub of yogurt (which I will probably eat in one sitting and then immediately throw up)
- fifteen different Lean Cuisine/Weight Watchers/Healthy Choice frozen food dinners
After struggling to carry the heavy bags through the throngs of tourists in Little Italy, I got home and started unpacking. I heated up one of those Lean Cuisine bad boys (a surprisingly good chicken fettuccine alfredo dish) and sat down to waste yet another hour watching The Sopranos (seriously – what the fuck? I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath until next year for the new episodes).
After that disappointment, I headed for the fridge to grab some ice cream. Brian had left some Haagen Dazs strawberry, which I planned to rip into. But when I grabbed it, I noticed it was very soft. I pulled off the lid and saw that water had begun to separate from the ice cream. It was melting, and in a weird way.
I stuck my hand in the freezer and noticed it wasn’t as cold as it should be. The ice cubes were beginning to melt in their trays. I opened the refrigerator and that too was too warm. Then I stepped forward and when I did so, stepped in a puddle of water. The fridge was not cooling properly. And it was leaking.
I did my "man" thing, inspecting the fridge, opening and closing the doors, trying to find the source of the water – pretending like I knew what the hell I was doing. I juggled the thermostat, unplugged and replugged the fridge (after letting it sit a few minutes), and generally walked around it, checking it out. I couldn’t figure it out, though I was not trying very hard. It just wasn’t blowing cold enough air anymore.
Normally, any NYC apartment dweller would call his/her superintendent to resolve the problem. However, I don’t have my super’s number. He spends his days and nights drinking wine in the Italian restaurant that I live above. Also, he speaks no English. I am not joking when I say that I would probably understand him better if he spoke in Italian, even though I don’t know Italian (but it’s close to Latin and Spanish). So no super.
So I called my dad. Not only was my dad was a mechanic, but he has tattoos, smoke two packs of Marlboro Reds a day, and wears bandanas. He knows how to fix shit.
I, on the other hand, do not. There is no limit to my ineffectiveness around the house (though it is not as illimitable as my ineffectiveness in the bedroom – I hooked up with four girls at the reunion this weekend and two of them actually punched me in the face midway through the Mulgrew Show).
Yet I try to hide my inability to fix shit when talking to my dad, because I think it secretly breaks his heart that I don’t know what a nail is and instead of changing light bulbs, I just move out of apartments when all the lights burn out. I had no doubt that he would know how to solve the problem and it was probably something easy to fix, so I had to play it cool and not let on that I had to take some Xanax, so concerned was I about losing all the food I just bought. I called him and we were shooting the shit for a while before I broached the subject:
Me: [nonchalantly] "Oh, one thing I wanted to mention – my fridge is leaking."
Dad: "Where at?"
Me: [playing cool] "Uh, you know, I think the thermostat is busted. It ain’t cooling enough, so it’s starting to leak onto the floor by the door. It’s not a big deal though."
Dad: "Well, it could be a big deal. I don’t really know about refrigeration, but…
[Ten minutes of words that mean nothing to me, stuff about "gaskets" and "drip pans" and "coils" and "the manufacturer," as I said "Yeah" and "I know" and finally "That's what I thought, too."].
Dad: "So if I were you, I’d get that figured out."
Me: [fighting back tears, clutching rapidly melting frozen White Castle burgers] "One step ahead of you."
I hung up the phone and went to bed, resigned to the fact that my food is gone and my fridge is dead.
***
This morning, I woke up and there was more water on the floor. The fridge was marginally cold, but it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing goes to shit. I called the landlord but didn’t get an answer. Seeing as I told him that my mailbox was broken three months ago and he hasn’t fixed that, I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take to get this fridge problem fixed. So it looks like I’ll be living out of a cooler for the next few days/weeks/months. I don’t mind that I haven’t received a piece of mail in three months, since it was all junk anyway. But not having a fridge, well, where am I going to put my chocolate milk? And do you really expect me to drink warm vodka? I mean, fuck.
So the past two nights I’ve been in my "new" apartment solo, I lost my luggage and my cable was shut off and now my fridge is broken after I bought $140 worth of groceries to put in it. I am on quite a run here. I’m waiting for my boss to walk into my office and punch me in the face or my mom to call and say that some black chick just dropped off a blind kid saying it was mine (no regrets – 2003 was a good year).
After work, I’m going to go home, put on some Sigur Ros, and throw out all my food. It’s going to be a sad, sad moment. Close friends should expect a sobby phone call sometime after 10pm. I would post at that time as well, but my hands will be covered yogurt and meatless meat crumbles and I don’t want to fuck up my computer.
[Jamaica and reunion recaps forthcoming.]
[Not now, but in the next couple of days. I haven't forgotten, but I got some shit going on. Don't be a dick.]
Part of the cleaning involved the fridge – throwing out both my old food and Brian’s old food. This did not take very long, since our fridge is usually completely empty, aside from Friday nights when it is filled with Pabst, leftovers, a pizza, whatever we can mix with vodka, and usually something horribly gross (band-aids,Q-tips, condoms, etc). After I trashed all the old food, I went to the super market to buy some new groceries.
[Seriously, you have not lived until you've masturbated into a cold condom. You're welcome.]
I admit, I got a little out of hand at the supermarket. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always have a (mental) list, which is comprised of:
- chocolate milk
- skim milk
- cereal
- ice cream (one pint of Cookies n Cream and one exotic pint)
- frozen pizza
But last night, flushed with feelings of independence and "living single," I went on a shopping spree. In addition to extra cleaning products, I dropped $140 on all sorts of garbage that I will never eat, including but not limited to:
- organic broccoli bites (which can not be microwaved and so are useless to me)
- stuffed shrimp
- meatless meat crumbles (?)
- fake chicken patties
- three different kinds of pot pies
- regular chocolate milk AND soy chocolate milk
- a two pound tub of yogurt (which I will probably eat in one sitting and then immediately throw up)
- fifteen different Lean Cuisine/Weight Watchers/Healthy Choice frozen food dinners
After struggling to carry the heavy bags through the throngs of tourists in Little Italy, I got home and started unpacking. I heated up one of those Lean Cuisine bad boys (a surprisingly good chicken fettuccine alfredo dish) and sat down to waste yet another hour watching The Sopranos (seriously – what the fuck? I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath until next year for the new episodes).
After that disappointment, I headed for the fridge to grab some ice cream. Brian had left some Haagen Dazs strawberry, which I planned to rip into. But when I grabbed it, I noticed it was very soft. I pulled off the lid and saw that water had begun to separate from the ice cream. It was melting, and in a weird way.
I stuck my hand in the freezer and noticed it wasn’t as cold as it should be. The ice cubes were beginning to melt in their trays. I opened the refrigerator and that too was too warm. Then I stepped forward and when I did so, stepped in a puddle of water. The fridge was not cooling properly. And it was leaking.
I did my "man" thing, inspecting the fridge, opening and closing the doors, trying to find the source of the water – pretending like I knew what the hell I was doing. I juggled the thermostat, unplugged and replugged the fridge (after letting it sit a few minutes), and generally walked around it, checking it out. I couldn’t figure it out, though I was not trying very hard. It just wasn’t blowing cold enough air anymore.
Normally, any NYC apartment dweller would call his/her superintendent to resolve the problem. However, I don’t have my super’s number. He spends his days and nights drinking wine in the Italian restaurant that I live above. Also, he speaks no English. I am not joking when I say that I would probably understand him better if he spoke in Italian, even though I don’t know Italian (but it’s close to Latin and Spanish). So no super.
So I called my dad. Not only was my dad was a mechanic, but he has tattoos, smoke two packs of Marlboro Reds a day, and wears bandanas. He knows how to fix shit.
I, on the other hand, do not. There is no limit to my ineffectiveness around the house (though it is not as illimitable as my ineffectiveness in the bedroom – I hooked up with four girls at the reunion this weekend and two of them actually punched me in the face midway through the Mulgrew Show).
Yet I try to hide my inability to fix shit when talking to my dad, because I think it secretly breaks his heart that I don’t know what a nail is and instead of changing light bulbs, I just move out of apartments when all the lights burn out. I had no doubt that he would know how to solve the problem and it was probably something easy to fix, so I had to play it cool and not let on that I had to take some Xanax, so concerned was I about losing all the food I just bought. I called him and we were shooting the shit for a while before I broached the subject:
Me: [nonchalantly] "Oh, one thing I wanted to mention – my fridge is leaking."
Dad: "Where at?"
Me: [playing cool] "Uh, you know, I think the thermostat is busted. It ain’t cooling enough, so it’s starting to leak onto the floor by the door. It’s not a big deal though."
Dad: "Well, it could be a big deal. I don’t really know about refrigeration, but…
[Ten minutes of words that mean nothing to me, stuff about "gaskets" and "drip pans" and "coils" and "the manufacturer," as I said "Yeah" and "I know" and finally "That's what I thought, too."].
Dad: "So if I were you, I’d get that figured out."
Me: [fighting back tears, clutching rapidly melting frozen White Castle burgers] "One step ahead of you."
I hung up the phone and went to bed, resigned to the fact that my food is gone and my fridge is dead.
***
This morning, I woke up and there was more water on the floor. The fridge was marginally cold, but it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing goes to shit. I called the landlord but didn’t get an answer. Seeing as I told him that my mailbox was broken three months ago and he hasn’t fixed that, I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take to get this fridge problem fixed. So it looks like I’ll be living out of a cooler for the next few days/weeks/months. I don’t mind that I haven’t received a piece of mail in three months, since it was all junk anyway. But not having a fridge, well, where am I going to put my chocolate milk? And do you really expect me to drink warm vodka? I mean, fuck.
So the past two nights I’ve been in my "new" apartment solo, I lost my luggage and my cable was shut off and now my fridge is broken after I bought $140 worth of groceries to put in it. I am on quite a run here. I’m waiting for my boss to walk into my office and punch me in the face or my mom to call and say that some black chick just dropped off a blind kid saying it was mine (no regrets – 2003 was a good year).
After work, I’m going to go home, put on some Sigur Ros, and throw out all my food. It’s going to be a sad, sad moment. Close friends should expect a sobby phone call sometime after 10pm. I would post at that time as well, but my hands will be covered yogurt and meatless meat crumbles and I don’t want to fuck up my computer.
[Jamaica and reunion recaps forthcoming.]
[Not now, but in the next couple of days. I haven't forgotten, but I got some shit going on. Don't be a dick.]
