lonecity.com

I’m pretty sure nobody is actually following my blog.  Well at least I hope not, its pretty damn uninteresting.  But if you happen to have stumbled across a post a few months back about buying a new refridgerator, you’d know I decided against it.  Ever since I payed over a grand for a new fridge that lasted me only days past the warrenty I have felt cheated.  I managed to find a dinousaur of a fridge and its gotten me by.  It was pulled out of an apartment by a slum lord who decided it was too old to keep in service.  (that should give you an idea of how ugly this fridge is…)  Anyhow I’ve got a story to tell today.

I’ve eluded to the fact that I work in a retail establishment a number of times in my blog.  Most recently I mentioned how I am among the 533,000 people who have been laid off so far due to the recession.  Technically I’m still employed until january and there is still a possibility that my company will have a position open up for me before then.  Not that it matters much, I can do much better.  Anyhow, one of the things we sell is appliances, and I wanted to relate a refridgerator story to you all.

I’ve wanted to stop drinking soda pop for many years, but every time I’ve tried I’ve failed miserably.  I just like it too much, even though I know its killing me.  (addition?)  I made up my mind that the only way I’m going to be able to do it is to have a replacement on hand.  I can’t seem to keep cold water in the fridge.  Its just too much of a hassle.  I can’t seem to get myself to take it from the tap.  I’ve been thinking the solution is one of them fancy $2500 - $3000 refridgerators with ice and water dispenser built into the door.  Of course I know the reality of my attempts is that I’ll probably spend the 3k and then it won’t work anyway.  So I’ve just told myself I’m not going to do it.

A few nights ago some folks came by to purchase a new refridgerator.  One of my guys who helps people with carryouts among other things wasn’t too bright.  When these folks came by they had a refridgerator loaded on their trailer.  Now its obviously not new, perhaps two or three years old, but he asks them if its a return.  Then he kindly helps them get it off their trailer and onto the ground.  Theres no way we’re taking a return on a refridgerator thats a couple of years old.  Even if it was still under warrenty we’d send a service guy out, not take a fridge back into the store.  They head on back to the appliance department and buy their new fridge.  I don’t know whether they made an attempt to return the old one or not, but either way there was no way it was getting refunded.  I guess these folks weren’t any smarter than the guy I’ve got helping with carryouts though, since this fridge was a very expensive model.  Stainless steel doors, Ice and water in the door, all the bells and whistles.  I guess when they realized they weren’t getting a refund for a fridge thats a year or two old, they decided to just leave it in the parking lot! 

I’m the guy to fixes everything.  Both in the sense that I fix things that are broken, and in the sense that I fix problems when they come up.  Well having what must have been at least a $2500 fridge dumped in the parking lot is a problem, so I came in the next morning to find it stuffed in my office door.  I guess I could be bitter or happy about it.  The unit has a bad compressor and it will take a good $300 to fix, but its free.  Actually after it set in the hall a couple of days they begged me to get rid of it.  Its in remarkably good condition and well worth the money to repair as opposed to junking the unit.  These folks must have ether been out of their mind or just plain damn filty rich.  Either way, I got my new fridge and so far its cost me nothing.

I gave it a good look over and I can see why the compressor burned out.  There’s a regular maintenance for this model about every three to six months you have to take a vacuum and run it across the coils at the base of the unit so it has airflow and doesn’t overheat.  They must have flooded the room it was in, and that coupled with the fact that they NEVER vacuumed the coils caused the condenser coils to have lint caked onto them.  So thick that I had to remove it with a bathroom scrub brush.  Ive run it through its paces and it is going to need a compressor so I’ll have to spend the $300 to fix it.  It can set in storage a few months until I get that built up.  Still that beats spending even the $500 or so it would take to get an el-cheapo fridge.  Let alone a top of the line $2000+ model. 

As luck would have it, our microwave gave up the ghost a number of months back.  I had procrastinated in buying a new one because I eventually want to remodel the whole kitchen.  I finally broke down and I bought a stainless steel microwave from wally world the week before thanksgiving on a super deal.  We can’t do the whole thanksgiving dinner thing with no microwave.  I was very hesitant to buy the stainless unit because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to buy all stainless appliances when the time came to do the kitchen remodel.  Still it was too good a deal to pass up and I decided it would have to go to the thrift store once it was time for a kitchen makeover.  Now I’ve got a stainless steel microwave, and a stainless fridge.  That changes things since to go all stainless will be a few thousand dollars less. I’d be replacing only half the appliances with stainless.  (A much more do-able thought)  Things were really going my way this week.  Now I just have to live through the whole job change thing.