Once upon a time 8 years ago we bought a side-by-side fridge-freezer that first stood in our living room for a month or two, or hell who remembers? Maybe even four. When the kitchen reno was more or less done, we moved the fridge to the kitchen, with a whole lot of huffin’ and puffin’ and cursin’ – and apparently removing and reinstalling the doors.

For 8 years, that frigde served us, with a problem here and another there, with signs that it might not be the most longlasting one ever, but little did we anticipate that after only 8 years, it would start breaking down. Perhaps we should’ve seen the signs, but we ignored them, in the hopeful way people ignore signs of impending doom. Until one day it started making a *noise*. Like a helicopter taking off. Uh-oh! Not good!

We tried defrost it, leaving it unplugged for a time, messing with the fan, you know, attempting to fix it, thinking that if it’s just got some ice there somewhere, it’s not fatal. After a few days it became clear that it was, indeed, fatal. Or at least could be assumed to be. Nothing helped, the noise kept getting worse. Auto-defrost was caputt. Ice cubes became a clump. Walls started to ice up. Fan sometimes didn’t work at all, sometimes sounded like a damned Apache flying in our kitchen.

So, we did what any reasonable people would do: we looked for a replacement. Not too many requirements really, just that it should be a similar machine. Side-by-side fridge&freezer, with an ice cube dispenser without plumbing (with water tank), full doors (not split cabinets), and not wifi/smart controlled. Turns out this last requirement was the hardest one to come by with the overall specification. We found one model. ONE. O.N.E. 1. Yes, we like a smart home, but we don’t want our appliances online.

It was the Thursday last week, two days before my 50th birthday party (if cake and coffe with a handful of family members can be called a party, but, you know), when I tried to order the fridge online. No problem per se, but I could only get the delivery options of out to the curb or through the door, end of story. So, what about taking the old one away? Getting the ginormous machine “installed” into its place? Oh, and we’d need a new flood matt thingy too! Helpful chatbot told me to go to a store. Groan.

So, with all the birthday baking and guests (family) and whatnot, Sunday was my designated fridge shopping day, fingers crossed the old one holds on a few days longer. Friendly sales dude made the order for me, all required delivery etc. option included and I selected a delivery time: upcoming Wednesday, 16-19. First one available that was ok for me too. Paid myself out of the store and happily set back home, fingers still crossed, glad to get the machine before the Midsummer’s three-day weekend knocking on our doors.

Come Wednesday, I’m at the office for most of the day, waiting a bit impatiently for the comfirmation of the more exact delivery time. Until finally my phone buzzes (well, actually, only my watch buzzes, phone is dead silent, just as I like it) with an SMS from the delivery company: your product will be delivered between 19:30 and 21:30 tonight. Wot?! Fuck. But ok, it’s a bit late, but ok. I leave it at that, figuring I’m not in such a hurry to get home from the office, after all.

I leave around 15:30, and right at that point I get another SMS, this one instructing me to select a delivery time for my product. I check the offered time slots: MONDAY June 23rd! What the actual fuck?! So I call the customer service and a friendly sympathetic dude tells me that yes, they are only delivering the flood protector matt today. WOOT!?!! He listens patiently as I rant about a dying fridge and “what the fuck do I do with the flood matt only? It won’t keep our food frozen or cold if the old machine dies during Midsummer!” “No, it won’t, you of course should get the fridge at the same time”, he agrees good-naturedly and promises to see what he can do to schedule the fridge delivery for tomorrow, ie. today, Thursday.

A bit later he sends an SMS informing me that he can’t confirm Thursday delivery yet, but will do his best the next day. Fine. Can’t do much other than wait and hope for the best, and turn the sound on on my phone and Sleep mode off, just to receive that darn piece of plastic in the evening. And rant and rage to Husband in a half-way melt-down manner until he snaps that he can’t take my shit no more, can you please just shut the fuck up already – there’s nothing you or I can do about it!

Fine. I grumble and am pissed off for the rest of the evening, and grouchily open the door to the guys bringing that friggin’ matt. “Two guys to deliver a sorry ass plastic matt!” I exclaim upon seeing all two of them holding the thing up to me. I go on to tell them how I fully expected to get my fridge tonight but something somewhere got messed up. “And no, not your fault I know, just complaining, you know.” “Well, we could take some measurements here, to see how the space is here, for the delivery”, the one guy says after seeing our sort of tight doorways, and promptly takes out a tape measure and starts measuring.

“Hmm, the fridge won’t fit through the doorway here. Nor does the old one fit out.” “Fuck-vittu! We totally forgot that we needed to take the doors off when bringing the fridge in, now I vaguely remember! I guess same needs to be done now.” “Hmm, we can’t do that without you clearing it with the seller first, because it probably cancels all warranty.” Some more discussion about the topic and a note about potential problems upon delivery and the guys bid me farewell and I descent to the bedroom to give the happy news to H. “We’ll take the doorframe out. Problem solved.” Fine, ok, whatever. I call the dude to tell him to note that problem will be solved before delivery.

And so it its. First thing this morning the frame is removed, leaving a crumbling cement wall on one side of the doorway, exposed red brick on the other. And a couple hours later the chipper customer service dude calls to tell me we’ll get our fridge today, delivery tom 14-16, “you’ll get a call half an hour before”. Yey! By 15 I am upstairs reading, still no call. Then 15:10 incoming: “we’ll be there in 10 minutes”. Um, ok! I better get busy emptying the fridge&freezer into coolers then! Chop chop!

15:20 on the dot they are here to take the old fridge away, first, obviously. Off comes the foyer door, too, to make more space. No problems with that part. Then they roll in the new one, in it’s full packaging. The try to squeeze the thing through the kitchen doorway, resulting in chunks of cement flying off the crumbling side. “Why are you taking it there in the cardboards? You need to take it out first!” “Well, but that is installation, it hasn’t been paid, so we can’t unpackage it. Now wait a minute sir! I full well paid for installation! Read the fucking receipt!

Dude reads the receipt and grudgingly agrees that there it is, takes a photo of it. They proceed to unwrap the beast, and set it on its floodmatt, and start hauling the packaging garbage out. “So, that’s it then, I guess,” the one guy says, the other one is already back at the truck. “Hold on! The door! We can’t get it back by ourselves!” So he grabs the door, fails alone, and hollers his pal to help and they get the door back in place, and take their leave.

We go into the kitchen, look at our new fridge&freezer, deciding that we actually like that black metal better than the silver-gray old one. But damn there’s a lot of tapes and plastics still in place! So the installation does not include getting all of that out. Fine, whatever, we set to work, and have our new machine plastic-free and filled with out groceries, humming practically soundlessly (yeah, conundrum, but what ever), cooling down with super-freeze and super-cool turned on.

So, same hopscotch 8 years from now? One would hope it’s not a trend, and this one would be a bit more long-lasting than that…