Appliance Nightmare

As I was putting the groceries away today (to the tune of over $200), I noticed some hot dogs in the small freezer above the refrigerator that were a little squooshy. Thinking they were in a bad place in the freezer, I moved them.

Dinner ran very late tonight and we didn't actually sit down together until around 7 p.m. Dane was putting drinks on the table and I told him I'd make my own tea. I went to put ice in my glass of tea and discovered that almost all the cubes had melted!!! I screeched for Don. The freezer was broken.

We talked about it through dinner, then I jumped up from the table and started cleaning out the freezer. Don brought it to my attention that, if the freezer wasn't working, neither was the fridge.

"I wish we had noticed this before you went to the grocery store," he commented.

You ain't the only one! After spending a couple of hours cleaning out the little freezer and refrigerator, sorting everything into piles of what needed freezing (in my parent's big freezer), what needed refrigerating (in coolers with ice), what could stay out without harm, and what needed to just be thrown out, Don and I had another pow-wow.

"Is the refrigerator well-enough insulated to act like a cooler?" I asked him. "If we put bags of ice in it, could we keep the refrigerated food cold in there without having to move everything into coolers? I'm running out of ice packs."

My big cooler is full and I was working on filling up our smaller coolers. And, Don and Dane had just been to a Braves' game in Atlanta and I had sent along our big cooler with our ice packs for drinks and the ice packs hadn't gotten back into the freezer yet.

"Yes," Don responded. "Remember the old days of ice boxes? Ice should keep the refrigerator cold for some period of time. How many bags of ice do you think we'll need?"

We settled on two, he's off to the store to buy ice, and I'm going to try and put some things back into the refrigerator. The milk will be much easier for the children to get to in the fridge than having to dig in the cooler for it in the morning. If I leave most of the top shelf for the bags of ice, we should have plenty of space.

We'll have to buy a new refrigerator tomorrow and, hopefully, get it delivered on Monday, but, in the meantime, we can act like pioneers. After all, my parents lived with ice boxes. I can, too, for a few days. Just as long as I get a larger fridge out of the deal!!