Fridgit.

As I write this, I am sitting on death watch for this old pal.

The guys are coming to take away the fridge after almost 18 years of dependable service. I hated to say farewell at this time, just because it was a bad time to drop a grand on another appliance, but when one's ice cubes become mushy, one must do what one must.

It's a blank canvas now, for the first time since we moved in. Business cards, photos, kiddie drawings, comical magnets, calendars, lists, schedules, cartoons, magnetic clips, holiday decorations, all manner of things have been stuck to the face of this humble machine. It has been our Kenmore. But tonight we shall be Kenless.

Eighteen Thanksgiving turkeys have gone in and out of this thing; eighteen roasts for Easter. Just seventeen for Christmas, since we didn't make it to this year's Christmas.

Oh, well. It was the first fridge we bought. Well, not counting the tiny one we got after the landlord's fridge died at our old apartment and he wouldn't replace it. That one was -- no kidding -- built in Yugoslavia, and performed about as well as a Communist country appliance might be expected to. What it mostly did was generate enormous hunks of impenetrable ice around the interior freezer. After it went kaputski, we got by with a little bar-size fridge until we inherited another one. Then we got a new one with the house.

And now it's going away.

Since we've been here we've replaced every other appliance, small or large, except the stove. From the hand mixer and microwave and toaster oven to the furnace and AC unit and water heater, from the dishwasher to multiple coffeemakers and coffee grinders to the rechargeable flashlight, even parts for the ice maker inside the fridge -- twice -- everything has been replaced but the stove and the refrigerator. After tonight, the stove stands alone.

My wife never cared for this fridge. I was just happy that it was frost-free. And that it's seen us through years, happy and hard, flush and busted, challenging and simple. I can get sentimental for something that just happened to be standing around during major milestones, it's true.

All right, Kenmore, your refrigeration is done. Time to get you emptied of your remaining half-chilled contents as we await the new machine.

LATER TUESDAY... 

The outfit from which we purchased the new one, which I will identify only as "Blowe's," called us to say, well, looks like the fridge didn't get on the truck after all. To which I explained that the shipper (a subcontracting outfit), whom we had been told by "Blowe's" to call this morning, had said that the guys were coming late, and was "Blowe's" sure that the fridge did not make it on the truck?

Call ya right back...

Nope, still there in the store! How about that! Well, we'll just try to get that to you tomorrow. 

I strive to be polite to customer service people, having done some of that work myself and having reached an age of some sober adulthood, but that set off Angry Yoda immediately, and boy was he pissed.

OH NO. THERE IS NO TRY. WE PLANNED THE WHOLE DAY AROUND THIS AFTER YOU CALLED TO TELL US ON SUNDAY THAT IT WOULD BE HERE TUESDAY, AND NOW WE HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN WEDNESDAY AND YOU'RE GOING TO TRY TO GET IT OUT? YOU HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN. THERE IS NO TRY. 

Yes, right, we'll do that. 

AND WE WILL BE EXPECTING A CALL IN THE MORNING TO TELL US WHAT TIME. (Which we did not get this morning, which is when we called and were referred to the truck guys, and someone just lie lie lied to us.)

Yes, you bet.

As you can guess, I was pretty sore. Imagine how mad I would have been if I did not work from home, and had taken off Tuesday to accept delivery of the appliance, just to be told that maybe I should have taken Wednesday off instead, or possibly Thursday... I'm sure my supervisor would have loved that.

So we'll see, "Blowe's," we'll see. Keep you posted....

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

New fridge arrived at one, actually sooner than we'd been told, so I had to scramble to empty the old one. We bid Ken a fond farewell. The new one seems to be working just fine. A happy ending? Mmmmyeah, but not entirely, not till I pay the credit card bill....

Toilet Tuesday!

I was in Lowe's a week or so ago and, while waiting (and waiting and waiting) for help in the plumbing section, I saw something that totally blew me away, toiletwise.

At first I was no more bowled (Ha!) over than you. White toilet, so what? The claim below, "Unmatched clog resistance," just tells you it's as bad as all our modern low-flow toilets. But then I saw this!

"Engineered to prevent clogs; flushes a bucket of golf balls in a single flush."

How did I miss this in the newspapers? 

We have a clutch of toilets and I wouldn't bet on any of them flushing one golf ball. 

I checked American Standard's Web site and sure enough, they stand by this outrageous claim: 

Performance
Removes 2.2 lbs of waste in a single flush (1,000g MaP score - the highest rated flush performance possible!)
Flushes a bucket of golf balls in a single flush.

I could hardly have been more gobsmacked if they said, "Flushes a five-pound watermelon in a single flush." Well, I suppose I would really have wanted to see that to believe it.

But about this golf ball business. Since my trip to the hardware store I've been thinking about it, and I have some questions:

1) How slowly do they pour in the golf balls? Yes, I question whether the primary toilet here at Baldpate Manor could flush a single golf ball, but let's assume that it is possible. Well, if I flushed one a day, eventually I could flush an enormous number of golf balls. Ah, but they're onto me; the claim is that they can flush a bucket "in a single flush." Unless the thing is designed to flush over the course of twenty to thirty minutes -- which would likely violate the federal government's 1.6-gallon maximum flush capacity -- their claim grows more not less impressive.

2) How big is the bucket? This is a real bone of contention, because "a bucket" means different things on different golf courses, or even on the same if your course's driving range sells different size buckets. Putting the question "how many golf balls in a bucket?" on Google gets you a number of varying answers from golfers, and a few from science and math teachers who want to give students a formula to calculate a population of spheres from available volume. It seems that while the so-called federal government can force us to use the same toilet capacity, it's all just Wild West out there for driving range bucket capacity. I would like to think American Standard would not fiddle with us by using a rocks-glass size bucket that holds two golf balls; certainly their illustration makes it seem that we're dealing with at least a bucket of 30.

3) Would anyone actually put this to the test? I wouldn't. Not in my house. Even if my new supercrapper could handle a bucket of 300 balls, I would just expect them to get stuck in the plumbing, clogging the sewer outlet or something. No Liquid-Plumr or Drano is going to dissolve a bunch of golf balls. People with septic tanks would probably be even less inclined to try this at home. I think American Standard is expecting that we will take them at their word, and I think I'd have to.

4) Might this start a plumbing themed war over sporting equipment? Will Kohler respond with a toilet that they claim could flush billiard balls? Will Ove counter by flushing fully inflated regulation NBA basketballs? This could get ugly. And awesome.

All that said, I can almost guarantee my next toilet is going to be the Champion 4. I've dealt with plungers too often over the years in our home, and I'm not going to sit for it any longer. The only way I'll not get the Champion 4 is if the company releases a new toilet that can flush the entire 2,631-piece "Identity and Landscape" set of Lego bricks in one fell swoosh. Now that would be awesome.

Fuzzy varmint at the Lowe's.

Just minding my own business over by the gardening tools at the Lowe's, when I was accosted by this hairy little gray scalawag -- and no, I don't mean a member of Crosby, Still, and Nash:

What a naughty little varmint! Less than two feet away from me!

Why's the might predator so close? Probably because I was standing between him and sacks of bird seed. The little sidewindin' bushwhacker.

I've seen plenty of birds in the big box stores, especially Home Depot and Lowe's. Lots of plants and things to interest them, and that have many doors opening constantly. But I've never been so assaulted, like a salted peanut.

This Lowe's was within the five boroughs of Greater New York, so this squirrel was like, "Yo, outta my way, mofo." He could have easily leaped on my face, but he was trying to play it cool. "Do me a solid. Don't drop a dime on me, aight? I wouldn't wanna have to use one a dese shovels on ya."

I reminded him that he was a hairy little creep, that this life of crime was a one-way trip up the river t crossbar hotel, Sing Sing, the clink, the hoosegow, stir, Cinder Block Castle, the pokey, the cooler, the hot box, the slammer, the lockup, the House of Many Doors.

Then I had to go.

He's probably still there, getting fat as a beach ball on bird seed.

Jerk.