Our Refrigerator is Possessed

Oh the evil that lurks in the heart of our refrigerator! Sunday night I was in Las Vegas getting ready to go out on a date with our friends Keith and Mike (a la the beginning of the Terminator--remember Ginger listening to music through her headphones in the bathroom while putting on make-up?). Well, because of the earphones in my ears and the cell phone being in the other room, I didn't hear it ring when my spouse called in a panic because the refrigerator was showing signs of aggressive sentience (it was making a grinding noise and was really hot--45 degrees in the freezer and warm in the fridge too--like it was trying to work up the energy to walk off). I suppose the solution to not hearing the phone would be to put the music on my iPhone and listen to iTunes through it not through the iPod, but that would be too easy (and I'd have to rely on one battery instead of two... what a lame excuse!).

But back to the fridge. D spent the last three hours of Sunday night cleaning all the spoiled food out of the fridge and the freezer, and bagging and tossing it. Then he went to the studio to get my little studio fridge to use for the Sprout's lunch and the salvageable food. When he entered the studio he found Middle Ground (the medium kiln by the back door) on and resting comfortably at 1250 degrees. He thought it had been on and at that temp since I left for Vegas several days before. Ho boy. It was actually a friend firing a piece that he had put in on Sunday and everything was fine. The friend is just lucky Dave didn't panic and pull the plug before he could reach me. Dave was a bit... frazzled by this additional electronic appliance activity.

So yesterday the repairman comethed. He plugged the fridge back in and... nothing. The fans came on, the compressor started up, it was quieter than it had been since the day we brought it home. I'll give him credit, he didn't even look at me askance. He took it apart and checked to make sure there was nothing that had gotten into the fan and then fallen to the bottom of the housing when it was unplugged. He checked to make sure it was blowing cold air. He did everything but swap out a part... and it quietly hummed away throughout.

He told me to call back if it acted up again. I answered darkly that I wasn't going to put anything in its sinister body until I was sure it was going to keep working, and he drove off. As his van pulled away from the curb, the fridge growled at me. I whipped around and stalked over to it... and it hummed again. I stepped away, and it growled. I kid you not. I approached and it stopped all bad noises, I moved away and it growled. After a couple of minutes of this I called the repairman back almost hysterical. He said to call back on Monday if I wanted to, and to ask for him as the repairman and he would come out and even if he couldn't find anything wrong they would replace it for free (it's not even a year old yet).

I calmed down, thanked him, and said I would let him know. The fridge stopped growling at me, and it has been quietly humming at exactly its programmed temperatures in both freezer and fridge since last night. It's still empty--I'm not that trusting, but it's cold.

Evil fridge.