Sometimes, the normal amount of holiday stress just isn't enough.
On Dec. 23rd, I woke up and made two refrigerator-related discoveries: the automatic icemaker in the freezer was not making ice; and the milk for my morning bowl of Rice Chex (on sale during the holiday season, for Chex Mix-related reasons) was room temperature instead of 50 degrees or wherever we have set the fridge temperature. My snap diagnoses: the icemaker was busted; and as for the milk, the refrigerator - stuffed from stem to stern with food for the Christmas feast, not to mention the usual supply of leftovers, packaged yogurt, condiments, cold drinks and items that had been left in there for days/weeks/months because we had all forgotten about them and they had been shoved to the back, out-of-sight-out-of-mind - the refrigerator door hadn't sealed properly and had been slightly ajar all night.
I'm told that replacing an icemaker doesn't require an advanced degree in engineering, but I didn't want to try something for the first time with the holiday coming up quickly. So I Googled "Whirlpool repair near me" and called an outfit with many five-star reviews. They sent out a guy that same day. It was $85 for the visit, plus an add'l charge for the time spent on-site, which seemed a little high to me, but - we need that icemaker. He performed precisely as expected: tinkered for a few minutes and concluded that the icemaker unit needs to be replaced. He'd need to order a new unit, which wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas but should be here within a week. It promised to run me another couple hundred bucks, but wisely or foolishly (probably the latter) we told him to go ahead. I also mentioned the lukewarm milk in the refrigerator to him; his opinion was the fridge door hadn't sealed properly.
Then, the next morning, which was Christmas Eve, my wife opened the refrigerator and said, "I don't think the fridge is working." Everything in it was room temperature, including the spiral-sliced ham for Christmas, which honestly hadn't cost us an arm and a leg (it was another holiday-season on-sale item), but which we were counting on.
At that point, it seemed likely to me that the fridge had been on the blink for over a day, perhaps for 48 hours. Panic started to set in: anything that could spoil, possibly had. I took the top off the milk container and gave it a sniff; it was sour. The Christmas ham, the eggs, the orange juice, the chicken breasts intended for our Christmas Eve supper - it was all suspect.
I wasn't working on Christmas Eve, whereas this is my wife's busy season at work (she works for a company in the health insurance biz, and corporations have all just completed their annual open enrollments) and was slammed. So I sprang into action, or at least got off my dupa. I drove to an appliance store and purchased a minifridge, the idea being that we needed something relatively affordable that would get us through the holiday. That part of my day actually worked out as smoothly as could be wished: I picked out the unit and concluded the purchase within 5 minutes of entering the store. Two young men helped load it into the back of our minivan (for which I tipped them, it being Christmas Eve and all), brought it home, and with my wife's help lugged it into the house. We found a spot for it near an outlet in the kitchen, unpacked it, slid it into place, plugged it in - and it worked.
Then came the worst part: I had to make keep-or-purge decisions on literally everything in the fridge. We kept mustard, pickles, fruit preserves and butter, all of which we believe can exist unrefrigerated. We also kept the fresh fruits and vegetables, which didn't seem the worse for wear for having been at room temperature for a day or two. There were a couple of still-sealed Asian sauces that we kept. But we didn't keep much else. The Christmas ham, the unsealed liquids, the mayo, the cold cuts, the cheese, the yogurts, the opened package of hot dogs, the leftovers, the scary things in the back of the fridge - they were all tossed into Hefty bags and moved into the garbage bins in the garage. I estimate I purged at least 40 pounds of items (that's after I had poured all the liquids down the kitchen sink).
Then I had to run out to the grocery store to rebuy a Christmas ham and other items that we'd need to get through Christmas. Remember: this was on Christmas Eve. I suppose you all are far too intelligent to go food shopping on Christmas Eve. My usual grocery store was cleaned out. There were no more spiral sliced hams, at least of the on-sale brand. The deli counter was completely sold out of the thick-sliced bacon I like to use in our baked bean recipe, and all the on-sale brands of packaged bacon were sold out, too. There were no free-range eggs for sale. For the most part, I made do, but I refused to pay the regular price for a spiral sliced ham. So I went to a second grocery store, where they had plenty of hams in stock at the same on-sale price (wish I had started there!).
Then I came home, fit as much food in the minifridge as I could, and put some other items in a box in the garage (it's pretty cold this time of year where I live, so it's kind of natural refrigeration).
We got through Christmas today. Just got done eating our dinner. Nobody is ill so far, so I think we've dodged the food-contamination bullet.
Tonight, while I'm driving one of the kids home, my wife is going to hit Consumer Reports and research refrigerators. And then tomorrow, while my wife is fully expecting to be slammed at work again, I am going to go back to the appliance store and buy a new refrigerator. FWIW: we already need to redo one of the bathrooms (leaking toilet rotted some of the flooring), so the fridge is going to have to come out of the bathroom-remodel budget.
Sorry if that's too much detail. Christmastime is stressful enough, without dealing with kaput refrigerators. But Christ is still born, and the promise of peace still is on offer. I am going to do my best to accept it.
Yikes Jim! That's worse than my Christina disaster story of many years ago when the oven element burned out, and the basement shower drain backed up, and the slats fell out of my son:s water bed (fortunately it didn't leak). The worst holiday disaster, though, was on a July 4th when the sewer backed up in the basement. We had to pay double overtime to get a plumber out on a holiday. And then it turned out that it was a problem with the city's system, someone had thrown a re-bar down a man hole and it blocked everything . The whole street was blocked up. We had to pay the plumber anyway (which I don't begrudge in the least , he had his holiday spoiled too!)
ReplyDeleteI am remembering the movie The Christmas Story, where the neighbor's dogs ate the turkey, and they went out for Chinese. The Chinese buffet here was open. I think if my refrigerator crashed I might consider that option!
My sister's birthday is on the 24th. Her kids treated her to Indian take-out. They always do a theme for her birthday.
P.S. Jim: if you're getting a new fridge, don't forget to cancel that order for the $200 part for your old one.
ReplyDeleteRight, I canceled the new icemaker on Christmas Eve. The repair outfit, which I had literally picked out of the Yellow Pages (or the Internet-age equivalent thereof) called me a bit later and left a voicemail saying they weren't able to cancel the order with their supplier, so I'd be charged for the part, although they won't charge me for the labor. If I have time today, I'll call them back and ask them to push their supplier a little bit harder to take it back. This outfit is not one I know and trust. It's hard to figure out how to deal with situations like that.
DeleteBtw - I'm definitely not convinced my situation was worse than the ones you dealt with!
I think our state's governor, who is from our town, didn't have a very nice Christmas. He got bucked off his new horse and was hurt pretty bad. I saw a picture of the horse. Looked kind of young and spicy. Maybe not the best horse for a 68 year old guy.
ReplyDeletePillen had more surgery on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure you don't have surgery on Christmas day if things were going hunky-dory. He is said to be doing well now, but sounds like a painful injury.
DeleteIce storm cancelled plans to attend Christmas Eve service with the Episcopalians. So we did Advent prayers at home. Third year with no oven for us, so ziti in the crock pot. Turned out good, though. Boy brought some cookies from the bakery at his work. We decorated the tree, played a word game, listened to lessons and carols. No gifts. Neither Raber nor I can quite fathom why the kid wants to be here for these holidays. We're cynical, broke, and tire easily, so what the attraction is eludes me. Grateful he showed up, in any event.
ReplyDeleteJean, pretty sure the attraction is being with Mom and Dad!
DeleteI agree, Katherine. Probably the best company in Michigan as well.
DeleteWe had all our children together for a few hours on Christmas. So grateful.
DeleteAs our health deteriorates, we want to feel that The Boy has better places to go to make memories than his aged parents, especially since extended family is gone for both Raber and me. We don't want him to feel unmoored when we croak. If you are called to family life, don't have just one kid, and don't have them late in life is my lesson learned. Christmastime tends to shine a harsh light on life's missteps.
DeleteI have to admit my Christmas time with my cousins was a little surreal. I liked hearing about the family but at the end, it turned to politics, if you can call it that. Trump is going to fix everything and Musk is at his right hand. And, Dear Lord, the conspiracy theories. One, maybe two, are even convinced that the Earth is flat with a dome overhead. They got this from some internet creep that, along with everything else, has them believing this. I think these people revel in how much ridiculous nonsense they can get their listeners to believe. If someone believes the earth is flat and everything else is conspiracy, how is there any chance to convince them of climate change? I’m nonplussed. I don’t even know how to start. Maybe I should hit myself in the head with a cast iron frying pan until all the physics is gone and I can join the party. Everyone is nuts.
DeleteHaha! The Boy had a similar response last time Raber took him over to visit the Baptist and Amish branch of the Raber clan. Lot of MAGA Ark Encounter Flat Earth Hillary Drinks Baby Blood FemiNazi Anti Woke types. Poor kid thought they were joking at first. "How is Dad even normal?"
DeleteI wonder how soon new refrigerators will come with AI built in. So that by merely lifting an item off the shelf, it will identify how long that item has been in the refrigerator as well as the number of calories, etc. it would be if you ate the whole thing, or half, or a third.
ReplyDeleteYou can already get this information by buying special scales or by going on the internet and entering your product name, or by entering the ingredients if you have made it on your own.
And, of course, this information could be synced with our eating history, count of steps, etc. to give us advice like "too many calories, too much sugar, etc." Of course, we can always intuit much of this, but a dialog with the refrigerator each time we opened it might be healthy.
Um, no thanks! That's all I need, a refrigerator that lays a guilt trip on me when I dig into some ice cream.
DeleteThere are a bunch of dystopian stories along these lines. People are required to use appliances issued by insurance companies that monitor eating habits so they can weed out people whose habits are not optimal. Or the only appliances you can buy are those that won't turn on unless you scan in a certain brand of foods, which in turn kick a portion of profits up to the appliance manufacturers.
DeleteHealth insurance companies monitor patients' home use of CPAP machines; I believe the idea is, the insurers won't pay for treatment (such as sleep disorders) that the CPAP devices are supposed to alleviate.
DeleteMy husband has a CPAP. He's had one for more than a decade. He finally believed me when I said he was having sleep apnea, and went for a sleep study. Turned out he had 40 episodes in one night during the study. The early version wasn't bluetooth. The one he has now is. I don't know who gets the data. The one they tell you about is the doctor or PA that you see once a year about it. The one they don't tell you about (but I'm sure the data is shared is shared) is with Medicare and supplemental.
DeleteK is not as obsessive about privacy or as irritated by intrusions into it as I am. We are both on blood pressure meds, and our clinic offered us blood pressure monitors that "won't cost you anything". Uh huh. It's subject to our deductible, and Medicare gets billed a hefty amount for it. It's useful to a degree, but they call you if you neglect to take your blood pressure for a couple of days. They call you anyway at least once a month for " a health check in". K always picks up the call. Sometimes I don't if I'm feeling cranky about it. I call it "nosy parker health care". The truth is if I were having health issues,I would have to see someone local about it. There's nothing Nurse Heather in North Carolina who works for the company ( not clear *which* company) could do about it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful my husband isn't having apnea all night long, and that our supplemental covers the generic blood pressure med. But it seems like there's a little too much involvement by people who don't need to be involved.
My overall three year CPAP usage score is 94%. I believe 70% is acceptable. Yes. I have to scan a QR code with my iPhone and the info is sent to the database. I use it mainly because it improves my daily life. I would use it even without surveillance by Big Brother.
DeleteIf you fall below 70%, what happens?
DeleteI had the insurance nurse call me up after my ER admit a year ago. She lit a fire under Lily, the flakey PA at the GP office, who was giving me the runaround on follow up test scheduling.
I can see some temporary monitoring as helpful. I took care of my mom at home after open heart surgery, and I had to monitor BP, O2, weight, etc, and code it into the cardiology office on a landline every day before noon. I also had to chart meds, diet, and activity on a paper chart for the visiting nurse. All of that reporting might now be done on a phone thru a single app now.
Jean, you are right that sometimes the monitoring is useful, and the telephone nurses can advocate for patients when a provider is being clueless. Our primary doctor did say that the bp monitors have alerted him to a possible stroke in a patient.
DeleteIf below 70%, I guess one’s coverage can be dropped or they give a warning. I was never even close so I don’t worry about it. Actually, I like data collection and analysis probably as much as Jack. I wear a Garmin smart watch and observe my heart rates and such. I mostly use it to run my weight lifting schedule. I am interested in my health but there’s also curiosity about this weird body contraption God gave me.
DeleteWell now I am probably labeled as a non-compliant patient. I talked to Nurse Rachel this morning when she called for the monthly assessment. Fine. I was polite and answered all her questions. I thought, good, we're done for another month. So this afternoon I get a call from the same outfit, and said I already completed the assessment. The voice said, "Oh, it's not about that. We're introducing our new AI tool to help manage your health goals." I said "I'm not interested in talking to AI" and hung up. I'm a bad uncooperative old lady.
DeleteI do have an interest in using AI to talk with AI’s that call me. It would be trained to make the call last as long as possible. They’d have to reopen Chernobyl to power the insidious things.
DeleteOur Medicare Advantage thru the regional hospital, which was very cost-effective, is being phased out in 2026 since the U of Mich bought up just about every hospital in the state outside of Detroit and Grand Rapids (and the West end Yoopers, who go to Wisconsin for everything). U of Mich is great at research and experimental therapies. My cousins had their bone marrow transplants there. It's terrible at plain old health maintenance and geriatrics. Fortunately we have a year to pump friends and neighbors about the one or two alternatives to this behemoth and do price shopping on available plans. But all of them look to be going up up up in 2026.
DeleteI have zero confidence in AI to keep my information and data private and for me to maintain any control over where it ends up.
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