My refrigerator key is different from anyone else’s. It’s my car key. I can hear you asking, how can a car key open your refrigerator? Because my car is my refrigerator now. On February 19 I noticed in the morning when I poured the milk over my breakfast cereal, that the milk wasn’t cold. I ran and looked at the thermometer I keep in the fridge to tell me the real fridge temperature. It said 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I checked the freezer compartment, and it was still all frozen. I called the major store appliance repair unit, and they sent out a truck. The guy checked the fridge and said he would have to order a new part for the fridge, as he did not have that part in his truck. The earliest date he could give me for the installation of the new part was February 28. Immediately I moved the milk, cheese and meat from my dead fridge to my new fridge: the car trunk. Boy, am I glad my fridge died in February and not July. The car trunk would not be cold in July. Apparently, machines talk to each other now, because after United Parcel delivered the new refrigerator part, the service repair unit rescheduled the fridge fix to February 25.
Normally, if there is a day in February when the meteorologist predicts that the next day will be 60 degrees, I am elated, because I can then take a walk outside without any ice on the roads. Now that prediction makes me depressed because my new refrigerator will die! But today, February 25, nature heard my complaint about 60 degrees and my car trunk being too warm, and voila! Snow, sleet and ice. The fridge repairman called and said he would be at my house about 12:30 PM. I told him the driveway wasn’t plowed yet, so please descend my hilly driveway slowly. Just after he hung up, my snowplow driver came and plowed the driveway. Do machines have ESP, because I hadn’t called the plow driver. After the repairman fixed the refrigerator and left I kept hearing noises outside. I looked out and saw he was having trouble getting his van up my driveway, which had frozen right after getting plowed. He did get out after trying several times. The store van didn’t have studded tires, that’s why he had trouble. As my Vermont step-son would say, Vermonters understand ice and that snow tires and 4-wheel drive can’t compete with studded tires on ice. My first winter here in Hampton on my hilly driveway I got studded tires after talking to my stepson for advice. I think the real problem is that Connecticut legislators don’t understand ice. By state law in both Connecticut and Massachusetts you have to take your studded tires off by April 30. But in MA you can put them on your car on November 1, yet in CT, not till November 15. If you live in Woodstock, just a few miles away from Webster, MA, you don’t get glare ice till November 15? Maybe those folks who live in the Berkshire mountains in MA have more pull with their legislators than the folks in Litchfield County and Windham County, CT have with their own legislators.
No home appliance is made as well as it used to be. My husband and I lived in Scotland, CT for 32 years. In our last year there we started looking for another house that was not so full of stairs as our Scotland one. Stairs to get into the house from the back door, from the side door, from the front door, and lots of stairs inside the house. Meanwhile, our current fridge had died after three decades of faithful service. We figured that it would cost a lot to fix an ancient fridge, if they even made parts for a fridge as old as ours. So in 2015 we shopped for a new fridge, bought one, and guess what? It died, but fortunately during the six-month warranty period. The store service truck came, and the fridge needed a new major part that would have cost us $500 but was free because of the warranty. And that major part was right in the truck. The serviceman who came to my Hampton home on February 19 said this same major store appliance repair service doesn’t let them keep many parts on their trucks anymore; the repairmen have to order new parts from the worksite.
I then called a girl friend for the real scoop. She said the reason that appliances don’t last for decades anymore without needing repair is that not all parts are manufactured here in the US anymore, but elsewhere, and if you need a new part for the fridge, guess what! Shipping takes longer. Sigh. I cannot help but think of my great-grandfather, who was an immigrant from Sweden. When he got to the US in the mid 1800’s, he was asked at the immigration entry site in New York what his name was. He answered, Anton Johansson. “Oh, the government worker said, that’s Anthony Johnson in this country. Next customer please.”
Now Anthony understood cold. After all, Sweden was very frigid in winter. He told my grandfather that when he was a small boy in Sweden, his mother would rub all her children with bear fat and sew them into their clothes (with a trap door) once winter came, just so the skin wouldn’t crack and bleed. When he moved to Long Island, he became a confectioner. He made candy and ice cream. The candy he sold both to merchants on Main Street and in his own store by his home. The ice cream he only sold in his store. Why? Because it had to be eaten right after it was made. No electricity yet, just an ice box. The ice box was a wooden cupboard in which you put ice you had sawn off of ponds in the winter. You kept that ice in a wooden structure called the ice house and kept it covered with sawdust for insulation. Anthony would understand my dilemma.
My “fixed” fridge still does not work, so I went to a store and bought a new fridge before we lose those cold outside temperatures. When we moved to Hampton in 2016, I was talking to a Hamptonite woman about new appliances, and she asked how old my fridge was. I said only a year old. She answered, maybe you will be lucky enough to go five years without it breaking down. I responded that our old fridge had gone decades without a problem, and she said that they don’t make them as well as they used to. They now manufacture planned obsolescence so you have to buy a new appliance every few years. I am sorry to report that she is right. Anyone else having problems with new appliances? Gee, do you remember the auto lemon law? That was passed because so many people were getting new cars with problems. The CT statute covers defective vehicles under two years old or under 24,000 miles. Should we ask for a new law mandating that all appliances (refrigerators, dishwashers, stoves, washers, dryers) must be defect free for X number of years or come with a warranty for X number of years for any repair of defect, covering parts and labor? Angela Hawkins Fichter