Jenn Powazek

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Last night was my second night I spent in my new apartment. I didn't sleep well at all. I woke up around 2 AM and was just wide awake. I turned on the tv and watched random shit for about an hour and then fall back asleep. I guess my mind was too full. My Dad came over last night with his power tools to fix a bunch of stuff and secure all of my cabinets and bookshelves so that during the next earthquake they won't fall down.... on top of me! We went out to sushi too. Yum.

Sunday night I slept great because I was soooo exhausted from the move. I basically made my bed, set up the bathroom stuff, and found clothes for Monday in various boxes and then went to sleep. I slept like a baby.... except for the fact that I set my alarm clock wrong so it didn't go off. Thank goodness my body clock woke me up at 6:00.

Moving was such a pain in the ass. I took a couple of loads over myself Saturday morning and then my friend Erin (best friend from 1st grade, seriously), came over to help me for the afternoon. We took about 4-5 loads of stuff up. I esentially moved all of my kitchen crap, bathroom crap, and clothes over on Saturday.

On Sunday, I met my brother Jon at my Mom's house at 10 AM to pick up the couch. It was funny.... my Dad said he'd meet us over there to help with the couch, and I was like, oh no Dad, I can get it! Well, I barely was able to lift it. For some reason, I guess I thought I was stronger than I was. Or, I was just really sore from moving the day before. Yeah, let's go with that... that sounds a lot better!

So, Jon and I eventually moved the couch into the truck and headed over to my Dad's for a quick bagel. From there, we headed to the new place to get the couch and the fridge upstairs.

Here begins the saga of the fridge.

I took this new place because I really liked it. The crappy part was that it didn't come with a fridge. I asked around work if anyone knew of a free fridge somewhere or one I could buy (cheaply) from someone. My boss said he had an extra one in the garage that was "in great shape and only a few months old" that I could have. SCORE! He gave me the measurements, I went to the apartment and measured, and all was supposed to be good.

Charley, my downstairs neighbor at my old place, has a truck and said he would help me with the fridge. On a drizzling day, we drove over to Bill's to pick it up. Drizzling... first bad sign.

When we got there, I was shown the fridge and was told that it worked. From the outside, it looked great. When I opened it, I was totally disgusted. It was stinky and dirty and nasty. He left a bag of tomatoes and frozen canned orange juice in it and left it for the last 4 months, unplugged, in the garage. Second bad sign.

No problem he says as he rolls the fridge out into the what was drizzle and had now turned into rain. So, in the rain, we are hosing out the fridge and comet/bleaching all the nastiness away. It took almost an hour to get the fridge semi-ok. It still had a bunch of rust stains inside and still stank... and we ended up throwing out some of the plastic pieces that were just too gross to clean.

Finally, we loaded the fridge into the truck... in the rain... and drove over to the new apartment. I called some buddies to meet us over at the new place to help get the fridge up the stairs.... in the rain. There were 5 of us there with a fridge dolly to lug this heffer up the 16 stairs.

We couldn't do it.

It was too slippery in the rain. We'd probably kill someone. This would be the third bad sign.

Luckily, my residential manager let me keep the fridge in his garage until the next weekend when my Dad and brother Jon would be there to help.

Fridge saga - second weekend

After we moved the couch up (succesfully), we got the dolly and the fridge and attempted to get it up the stairs for the second time. This time, I had brother Jon, Dad, Charley, and Nick. It was a BITCH to move but we finally got it up into the apartment.

However, it didn't fit in the kitchen. Fourth bad sign. I measured correctly except the walls weren't completely straight. We actually got a few inches in and then it got stuck. Yah... I wasn't too happy by this point. We had to all pull it out of the hole and move it out of the kitchen. This wasn't the easiest thing to do with a fridge weighing 1000 pounds.

It'll look fine here in the dining room my Dad said.

I wasn't having it one bit. When you are overwhelmed with your life, breaking up with your boyfriend, moving into a place by yourself, and having a hard time, you just need things to work or fit. So, this not working or fitting was tearing me up.

No, Dad. It looks horrible there. I hate it. But, whatever... I'm letting go of this... I'm releasing it to the universe... let's keep moving shit.

We plugged the fridge in and left it in that horrible space in the dining room while we unloaded the rest of the crap that was in my car and then headed back to the old place to pick up more.

Four hours later, after three more loads in the truck and my Rav4, we were finally done... and completely exhausted and starving. Everything else fit in the apartment although there were boxes everywhere. No room to hardly walk. It was really quiet... when Jon said How come it doesn't sound like the fridge is on?

The fifth and final bad sign of the fridge.

The light was on but nobody was home. The fan wasn't working.... the compressor wasn't working. The fucking huge ass fridge that took two attempts to get up the damn stairs and didn't even fit, wasn't working! I was so done at that point.

No problem! I'll go to Best Buy, buy a new fridge, have it delivered, and make them take this piece of shit away. Problem solved! I'll get a new fridge that actually fits in the space it is supposed to, doesn't smell, and works! SWEET!

I took them both out for pizza and beer to thank them for their incredible help and to celebrate this new chapter. The beer and food never tasted so good. From there, my Dad went with me to Best Buy to find a fridge. Man, it was so busy there... totally insane. Eventually, we both found a place to park, found a great Whirlpool fridge, got financing with 12 months of no interest, and free delivery for tomorrow! AND, for $15 extra, they are going to take the beast away! YAY! So, I'm looking forward to getting my new fridge tomorrow and having food in the house. It's been weird not having cold water to drink.

This now ends the saga of the heffer fridge. Lesson learned... I will know after one bad sign next time.

Posted by Jenny at December 23, 2003 09:25 AM