The Too Big Chill

Instead of boo-hooing yesterday about my kids growing up, I should have been paying attention to the new refrigerator. I mentioned that it was a very tight fit, and I was very thankful that it fit into the built-in space we had. It was the only refrigerator with that capacity that would fit. I had measured the space front to back and knew I had about 32 inches of space, and this thing was 31.5 so it was perfect.

I loaded all my food in, and there was plenty – mostly jars. My husband thinks jars are like dollars – it’s better to have too many than too few. In the old refrigerator they were scattered on every shelf and all over the shelves in the doors. I decided to organize them and discovered that we have 10 different jars of jelly. Nobody even eats jelly in this house but me - about once a month. There were two jars of mint jelly, which he uses for lamb but has not made lamb in three years. There are six jars of horseradish! Eight jars of mustards. Three tubes of wasabi. I filled one door rack with nothing but salad dressings. It took me an eternity to get all that stuff into the new refrigerator because I wiped off all the sticky on the jars. It sure looked pretty in there when I got done.

Later, when I went to pull a frying pan out of the drawer that evening, I couldn’t open the drawer because it bumped into the new refrigerator. S-word! F-word even. So I pulled it out (the refer, not the drawer) and measured it. 31.5” – it should fit. I pushed it back in as far as I could and tried to open the drawer. It hit the refrigerator.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “The refrigerator doesn’t go in deep enough.” So my husband pulled it back out and we looked closely. Where the water line comes in, there is a 1” metal protector that added, duh, 1” to the depth. So it was actually 32.5” deep. I kindof wish someone would have pointed that out in all that stuff I read onlne when I was doing hours of research.

I called the appliance store and they will take the bohemith back if we pay a 15% re-stocking fee, which ends up being close to $300. I don’t blame them, but it’s a lot of money to pay.

So now we’ve decided we’d put the one we moved into the bonus room back into the kitchen and get a much cheaper one to put in the bonus room. This means going back to the store and shopping, having the appliance guys come and move the the refrigerators around, and me having to move the food all over again.

There is a very small silver lining in all this. When the appliance guys were here, I asked them if they’d move the two old ones out to the driveway because I’d never get my husband to do it. One of them said, “Oh, he’s that kind of guy, huh?” and I said, “Yeah, he’s pretty good with the remote control but he doesn’t want to do too much more than that while he’s home.”

“I do that,” the guy says. “I just tell my wife I don’t know how to do something and then she quits asking me.”

“Really?” I said, intrigued.

“Sure, or else I do it wrong and then she thinks I’ll just screw it up if she asks me to do it again.”

“I think that’s EXACTLY what my husband does!” I said. “I ask him to do something and he never manages to do it the way I want him to, even if I give great directions.”

“Yep, he’s doing that on purpose,” he said. “I do it all the time.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Well, I better not say anything more, I’ve already given away a big guy secret.”

He clammed up after that. I started thinking about all the times my husband, and for that matter my kids, have whined that they didn’t know how to do something, or say, “But mom, you do it so much better,” and I quit asking them. The whole thing started becoming very clear to me. It would never occur to me to do something badly in order to get out of having to do it again. I would just complain the whole time I’m doing it and make everyone so miserable that they don’t dare ask me to do it again. This seems like the honest way to go about it.

From now on I’m going to be on the lookout. When somebody around here does a lousy job I’m gong to accept it rather than thinking I need to get in there and do it next time because I want it “done right.” It’s better to get a halfway job than none at all. That’s my new theory.

I hope I get the same delivery guys when they come to pick up the refrigerator and deliver the new one. If I get more insider tips on the conniving behavior of men, I’ll pass it along.