The Gaping Maw

It's been an extraordinarily frustrating and expensive year around the old homestead this year. Home ownership is great and all, but I often admire renters, too--particularly for the fact that they have mobility and that the burden of maintenance falls upon the landlord.

Our house is fourteen years old. It's a nice place, and we've been very happy here. No jaw-less Japanese corpse ghosts in the attic, which has always been a big plus for us. It's got a nice layout and we've done a good job with the yard, and Lyla knows it well and is comfortable here.

But the last year has seen a wave of appliance meltdowns. Since January, we've replaced the dryer and the dishwasher and did an $800 repair on the A/C unit. We paid a fellow to put in the dishwasher (we tried to do it ourselves, but after a short period of time we didn't find even an ounce of joy in it) and it took us forever to re-wire the danged dryer cord.

Then, a month ago, we had to do a repair on the Prius. $500 more bucks that just flew away...

So that brings me to Monday morning, and a note by the coffee machine that Jeanne left before heading to work. She said the freezer was leaking, and told me to replace the towels (that's how we fix things--soak it up with towels! Quick! More towels!). I did and I went to work. I came home and looked at it more closely and, lo and behold, that ol' side-by-side refrigerator bit the dust in the middle of Sunday night. I didn't even know it was sick!

Last night we ordered another one.

A cool grand later, our new fridge will be here tomorrow and we're eating at Subway tonight.

I came home from work today (I left it plugged in over night, as it was still marginally cool, just not either freezing or cold) and the house stank like moldy cheese. The culprit, I soon found, was a brick of moldy cheese.

I vented the house, tossed out more than one hundred pounds of frozen and fresh foods, and spent an hour hosing out enough condiment bottles to fill a hefty garbage bag. Now, only the gaping maw (my least favorite horror cliche, by the way) of the old bleached-out fridge remains in the kitchen, waiting for haul away.

She gave us five good years of service, and likely did a good job for many years prior to that. We had planned to maybe fly home for Christmas this year, but now it's looking like spring break. I'll hum jingle bells every time I open the door for a cold drink, I suppose...

These things happen and that's just a part of life, but I sure hope that water heater out there isn't getting any ideas...