Refrigerator Saga

March 2006 – We buy a fridge. We are happy. It’s shiny. I give it cheese and sweet tea and I put my Café Du Monde magnet and pictures of the children on the front.

One year later – Fridge makes a horrible noise. It is obviously in some sort of horrific pain. We have the fridge repaired under warranty. Something about the motor? I don’t know, but it runs again and we didn’t have to pay anything. All is well.

July 6, 2009 – The fridge decides not to work. I try to think about what I could have done to cause this defiant behavior, but I think it’s not my fault. It’s 3 years old. I know how 3 year olds act. Maybe that’s it.

Day 1 – I call Samsung. They ask me lots of questions and take all my information. They tell me that a repair person will contact me within 24 hours. I wait.

Day 2 – Nobody calls.

Day 3 – I call Samsung again and explain that I have yet to be contacted by the repairman. Guess what they said? They wanted to know if I had called the repairman myself. I said, “No, I didn’t, because you told me the repairman would contact me.” They said, “Oh no, you need to contact THEM.” I said, “Then WHY did you tell me to wait for 24 hours on a call from somebody that I was supposed to be contacting and then not even bother to tell me who to contact?” They really just mumbled some crap right here but long story short, she gave me a number to call for the local repair company that we were to use. I call. I get a machine. I leave a message. I wait.

Day 4 – Nobody calls me back. So I call again and finally get a person on the phone. I make an appointment for someone to come out that afternoon. Said repairman arrives, takes a look and says “Hey! This motor has no fan!” We are all amazed that it has run 2 years without one. He orders a part and vows to be back tomorrow.

Let me stop here to point out how incredulous the guy was that it had been running for two years without a fan. He was so incredulous, in fact, that at one point I did feel the need to reassure him that I had never, no never, pulled the fridge from the wall and removed the fan for any reason. I wonder if it’s an important enough miracle that we should contact some religious faction, but somehow I sort of doubt it. It did, after all, eventually stop working. The real miracle would be if it was STILL going. But, I digress.

Day 5 – Repair guy replaces motor and fan but apparently is missing a tiny part he needs to complete the job. He leaves the house to get it and actually returns by 5:00 to finish the job. He says he is all done and it should be cold pretty soon. We pay him $200. By the time we go to bed, our fridge is not cold…

Day 6 – Not cold. But it’s Saturday.

Day 7 – Not cold. But it’s Sunday.

Day 8 – Called the guy to come back and try again. He says he’ll order a compressor.

Day 11 – Guy comes to weld in the compressor but runs out of something he needs to finish the job. Vows to return first thing in the morning.

Day 12 – Guy arrives around 2:30 in the afternoon and finishes welding in the compressor. He hangs around in the kitchen for a long, long time before he sheepishly calls for me to come talk to him. He pronounces the refrigerator “condemned”. Condemned to what, I do not know. Hell maybe? A life of hard labor in a work camp? At any rate, he says he will start the paperwork to begin the process of getting a new replacement fridge. We are still under warranty. I wait.

Day 13 through Day 22 - These days are not worth talking about, really. There was a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There were many bags of ice purchased and many phone calls made. There was lamenting over lack of cheese and cold tea. There was gaining of weight due to take out food and the feeling of camping out in a perfectly good house.

Day 23 – We are actually able to ORDER the new fridge. It is NOT the fridge I wanted because the one I wanted will not fit in my teensy-tiny kitchen. At this point, I truly don’t see renovation as an option. That’s okay. My second choice in black will be fine. Wait….are you saying I can’t have this black one delivered until Day 43? FORTY-THREE? (Aug 17). So, you say I can have the same one in white delivered on Day 27? I’ll take it.

I’ll let you know on Saturday whether we have a fridge and whether I am able to give it sweet tea and cheese and place my Café Du Monde magnet and the pictures of my children on the front. (because I know you care)