Food Issues

About 3 months ago we noticed the ice cream in the freezer compartment of our 11-year-old side-by-side refrigerator was getting mushy.  My contention is that if I was allowed to purchase and eat Ben & Jerry’s, it would not get mushy due to superior ingredients and better processing.  Donna’s contention is, that even though I might be correct (and I’m not), we would have to purchase equally high quality water in order to once again produce ice in that freezer.  Not to mention that if I was allowed to purchase, store and eat Ben & Jerry’s I would become excessively mushy. 

Round 1 to Donna…

Since the freezer could no longer make ice, we started weighing our options.  Spend $200 - $300 on a repair for an 11-year-old refrigerator or buy a new one.  Our customarily lucid conclusion? We could repair the fridge and then have something else fail, propelling us into an appliance death spiral of repair spending and still have to buy a new refrigerator. 

Armed with solid reason and a need for something cold to drink, we headed out for the first foray of a refrigerator-buying mission.  I’m using military terms because this feels like a military assault.  Buying a major appliance requires sound strategy and tactics.  Our typical approach (which we fully intended to employ) is to:

1.  Agree on what we both want.

2.  Do a little shopping in order find out that what we both want has not been produced, marketed or sold in North America for the last 22 years.  Remarkably, Harvest Gold and Avocado Green are no longer color choices.

3.  Reassess our needs, based on this new information.

4.  Agree on what we both want.

5.  Shop 3 to 5 appropriate stores.

6.  Find something that doesn’t bear any resemblance to what we both want, but is on an incredible sale.

7.  Buy it.

8.  Agree on what we both wanted and explain to each other why we really didn’t need it anyway.

9.  Bask in the glow of scoring a great deal.

This strategy has served us well for nearly 37 years, so there’s no need to change it now.

So we commenced shopping.  Up until about 90 minutes ago I was pretty sure I had a state-of-the-art refrigerator (not including its current performance challenges).   The level at which I was mistaken was (as the kids say) EPIC!

Here is what we learned on our refrigerator shopping trip. 

White is for decorating challenged backward thinking Neanderthals.  While harvest gold or avocado green would make a retro-statement, white is for uncreative people who need appliance therapy.  According to the salesmen, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, wants restaurant grade stainless steel!  Every time we asked a salesman “Does it come in white?”   They would glance at us pitifully and tell us that they had bunches of white ones in the warehouse for special cases just like us.  They don’t display them because only the aforementioned uninformed Neanderthal would buy white when stainless was available.  BTW, it ain’t stainless…  Those puppys are magnets for fingerprints and scratches, but I digress. 

Round 2 to Madison Avenue…

Our last stop was an appliance store with a real salesman who really knew stuff.  After telling him we didn’t need any help, he started to help us compare various features and benefits of the 3 refrigerators we liked the most.  The first step in appliance counseling is to get the patient(s) to admit they need help.

We settled on a Dutch door refrigerator with two external drawers.  They call it a "4-door" (like a 1972 Lincoln Towne Car) when it’s really a 2-door–2-drawer, like a Mini Cooper with an icemaker.

While punching the buttons on the control panel (it has really cool lights), Donna noticed that there was a button labeled “Alarm.”  She looked at the salesman and asked what the alarm was for.  He lowered his head, looked around and quietly said “It’s for people with food issues.” 

I gotta tell you that the “Food Issue” alarm trumps the WIFI enabled touch screen control panel with child lock and three temperature, humidity and barometric pressure controls. 

I immediately conjured up a mental picture of Donna placing a single pint of Ben & Jerry’s “Midnight Snack” ice cream in the freezer's custom pint size ice cream holder, enabling the child lock, setting the alarm, enabling the WIFI “Husband Enjoying Food Alarm” app and going to bed.

I stealthily force the door open to get at the ice cream bait, set off the “Food Issue” alarm, engage all the cool LED lights and am tasered by the Chicago food police who mistake the ice cream container for a Chik-Fil-A French fry box. 

Laying in a pool of melted B&J’s, my prints on the tamper-proof refrigerator child lock, I expire while Rahm Emanuel plays a funeral requiem over Pandora from the ice dispenser.

Now – the rest of the story: 

We became so distracted by the “Food Issue” alarm we had to stop shopping and start a new round of research.  I really do understand having apps in the door for the poor schmo that has to make a decision between an iPad and a refrigerator.  But the whole purpose of a refrigerator is to dispense ice cream (and other well-preserved food) to its owner.  Why would you need an alarm for an appliance engaged in the function for which it was created?

We found a wonderful refrigerator, on-sale – no alarms – no apps – no extra drawer.  Not what we agreed we wanted but MAN, WHAT A DEAL!!  As for the alarm, the guy at Lowes (along with the folks @ Samsung) say it’s to notify us  we left the door open.  Now that makes sense, one could easily leave the refrigerator door open while in a self-induced Ben and Jerry’s stupor.

Round 3 to Ben & Jerry…

Let the basking begin!