The Fridge

I've decided that for the telling of this middle part of our move I'm going to concentrate on stories rather than list everything in chronological order.  Because, well... following a chronological order is so yesterday.  At some point I can only hope that I'll be writing about the end of this move.  We're at 11 days of living here and the saga continues.

For me the saga of the fridge has pretty much defined this move so it seems like the most logical place to start.

You may remember from my post yesterday that my husband has a problem with how the fridge fits (or doesn't fit in his mind) into it slot.  He doesn't like that it sticks out about 4 inches.  Here is what the fridge looks like at the moment:

Right past the Huggies box on the left-hand side of this picture is the evil fridge.  See how it refuses to stay in its allotted spot?

And here is another picture of the fridge with Little Man standing in front of it.  Why yes, he is chewing on my giant ladle that I use when I cook a vat of sauce.  Thank you for asking.

And here he is again... because how could I not include this photo?

Okay, back to the fridge saga.  So, Brian made his opinion of the fridge known to the builder and we were told this would be an easy swap out.  The store where we bought it assured our builder that they had the same fridge (French doors on top, bottom drawer freezer) in a smaller size that will fit into the spot perfectly.  The delivery was scheduled for Monday, February 28.

Now, let's remember that we actually moved into our house on Saturday February 26.  And since I have an 18 month old to feed and since I just built a house and therefore don't have tons of splurge money left over, I needed a fridge of some sort to store food.  Luckily for us Brian and I carted our fridge from Texas to Georgia and it was sitting in my garage just waiting to be used.  Unlucky for me there are also about 100 boxes out in my garage.  So, every time I need something from the fridge, I contort my body (my 7 month pregnant body which you may remember from this picture) and get it out of here:

But who cared that I had to deal with this for 2 days... right?

So, on Monday, between the hours of 7am-11am our fridge arrived.  Our house sits on top of  a bump (it isn't really a hill but it's a heck of a trek from our mailbox all the way to our front steps) so the delivery man came up to see the lay of the land before he brought up the fridge.  In the meantime our builder had told us we could put some stuff in the fridge, bare necessities like Monkey's milk, so I emptied out the fridge, moved whatever boxes might be in the way and waited.  The delivery guy went back down to the mailbox, talked to the other delivery guy and then made his way back up to the house... without the fridge.  He told me that when he unwrapped the fridge there were 2 forklift dents in the fridge and he was sure I didn't want that.  He then offered for me to go down to the mailbox to see for myself.  I told him if he wasn't willing to bring it up here then there was no reason for me to go down there.  We called customer service and another delivery time was schedule for Wednesday, March 2 between the hours of 7:00am - 11:00am.

On Wednesday I again stayed home and waited for my fridge.  It was a different delivery guy who showed up this time.  And while I emptied out the fridge and yet again moved everything out of the path of the coming fridge, the delivery man said to me, "Do you know this fridge is being delivered COD?"  And of course I didn't know.  And of course I only had $12 in the house and of course the COD was for $54.  And of course I had a babysitter for Evan that morning so I could unpack and she had my car.  So, I called Brian to see if he could bring me the money... no answer.  I called the builder to see if he could bring me the money... no answer.  I even called one other person who I knew would front me the money... no answer.  So, we had to reschedule the delivery for Thursday afternoon between 1:00pm and 5:00pm.

By Thursday I really needed to go to the grocery store.  My mom and sister were coming in to town that night and I had spent the morning unpacking with Evan and chaperoning contractors in and outside my house.  Brian offered to come home while Evan napped that afternoon so I could run to the store.  On my way home from the store I called Brian to see if the fridge had been delivered since I would rather empty my grocery bags into the new fridge rather than the garage fridge.  He said no one had come.  I got back to the house and continued to wait. At about 4:00pm I called our builder to see if he had heard from the fridge guys at all (since our builder had managed our purchase the delivery was also being managed through him so they would have called him and not us).  He contacted them and told me that the fridge people claimed they had showed up to deliver the fridge at 1:37 but they knocked on the door and rang the doorbell and no one answered.  So, the earliest they could reschedule was Saturday, March 5 between 1:00pm and 5:00pm.

Saturday afternoon rolls around.  My sister and mom had been helping me unpack by watching the ever active Evan.  After Evan wakes up from his nap, around 3:00pm, Brian and I decided to offer my sister a respite and told he we would take Evan to Target to run some errands if she could wait for the fridge (which had not yet arrived but which my builder assured me was on its way).  She had no problem with this so off Brian, Evan, and I went.  After being at Target for about 30 minutes, my sister called and said to me, "Ellen, wasn't the new fridge supposed to be the exact same thing as the current fridge with French doors for the refrigerator and a bottom drawer freezer?"  And I answered, "Yes, why?"  Well ladies and gentlemen, it turns out that the fridge that had been delivered 4 times over the past week was not the fridge we were promised.  Instead it was the stainless steel version of the very fridge I had in the garage.

So, we called the builder.  Turns out "his guy" who told him it would be the same fridge was mistaken.  If we wanted the same exact fridge in a smaller version it would cost us at least $800 more out of pocket.  Which I wasn't willing to pay to placate Brian's OCD. 

Instead, here we are... 11 days out the fridge in the kitchen still sticks out and I'm still using the fridge in the garage to store most of my food.  Apparently we are now trying to work with the fridge we have.  If the structure of the garage allows we will try and bump out the fridge into the garage so it will appear to be cabinet depth.  If that doesn't work we might build out the cabinet around the fridge.  But apparently we still around 100% sure we are keeping the fridge we have.  I've basically decided on passive resistance and have started to slowly move all my food into the kitchen fridge.  We'll see what happens next.