Great News! Refrigerators Can Become Your Gym!

When we purchased our newest home, we learned that the previous owners had done a huge, very expensive upgrade, which included a gorgeous kitchen and high-end appliances. We also learned that this home was just a stop-over spot for the owners - the night before they would get on their yacht for a cruise. The home had been used so little in 8 years that the paperwork for the oven was still IN the oven when our home inspector came to do our pre-closing inspection. (Thankfully, he knew to check the oven before he turned it on...)

So, we were quite surprised when only 8 months later we noticed our refrigerator wasn’t working quite as well as it had been. Things weren’t as cold, and the ice cream in the freezer was getting soft. A couple days of that ... and ... oops, it stopped working altogether. We had blinking lights, no lights, a day of ‘cool’, no cool. Although we determined it was likely the computer (otherwise known as a ‘mother board’) we knew we needed a professional to come take a look as appliance repair people - We Are Not.

In the meantime, because the ailing refrigerator was the ONLY one we had, and we had food we needed to keep cold or frozen, we quickly ran to Home Depot, purchased a small one to tide us over, and like many families, put it in the garage.

We are very smart, talented folks, The Giff and I. But home repairs are not our forte. We are not DYI folks who love nothing better than looking for ‘fix it’ videos on YouTube, then taking on the repair ourselves. Appliance repairs make us cringe.

We scheduled an appointment (Hint: during the months of Covid) but even getting an appointment with an actual person was a challenge. Within a few weeks a very nice repair person did come (safely masked up) and diagnosed the problem as computer-related: “Most likely the mother board plus another part that goes with it.”

Okay, we were at least right in our very-untrained initial assessment.

He then said: “It won’t be hard to get the first part, but the other part is made in China, so it’ll take a few weeks to get it shipped here. “NO PROBLEM”, we said. “We can use the garage refrigerator for a few weeks. We love our fancy refrigerator so we’re good with waiting.”

At first, going to the garage refrigerator was a pain. We’d get what we thought we needed, forget things, and have to go back. The redeeming factor was we got a little exercise getting the butter, to cook with butter.

Every 2-3 weeks, the nice woman from the repair company would call and schedule our parts install ‘for next week’. I’d get my hopes up, and sure enough she’d call the day before and say, “Well, it didn’t come again this week.” This went on. And on. .And on.

At one point, John decided to look online and found what he thought was the correct ‘mother board', based on the comments in a Whirlpool forum. So he called the repair people. They told him it was not, in fact, the right one.

So ... we waited. We got VERY good at juggling all the ingredients for a meal as we went from garage refrigerator to kitchen. We probably upped our daily steps by about 2,000 going back and forth. And because it was a small upright refrigerator, we upped our leg exercise too as our squats became the way we got down to find something at the baaaackkkk of the bottom shelf.

We waited some more. We investigated buying a new refrigerator. During Covid. When, if what we wanted wasn’t in stock, it was a 6-8 month wait. So, we kept waiting.

We waited TEN DANG MONTHS for this very special part.

Finally in desperation, John decided he’d look online again. And sure enough, the same part he found months ago was still available. For $250. He said – 'What’s the risk? If it’s a computer part, the likelihood is we just plug in all the wires. If it doesn’t work, we can send it back.'

I thought they said we needed two parts? But what the heck, let’s at least try.

The part arrived and we got some help pulling the beautiful fancy refrigerator out of a very tight fit. And of course, the computer panel was at the very bottom of the backside – accessed only by laying down on our lovely, but oh-so-hard, tile floor.

It was a painstaking process – matching wire for wire; plug for plug. Making sure they were solidly clipped on. There was a lot of extremely sweaty hands – so helpful for tiny little plugs – and a fair amount of swearing. But all the wires fit in all the (what we hoped were) corresponding spots. We didn’t see any place for the necessary ‘second part’, so we didn’t worry about it.

Then the plug-in test. We expected perhaps sparks and smoke and a giant bang. What we got was a hum, a lot of clunks, then lights! Power! A compressor working!

It took a couple days to reach correct temps, and we basically held our breath and crossed all appendages and eyes as we waited.

I mean, really. I did mention earlier that we are not appliance repair people. We’re good at lots of things, but mechanics are not on the list. It CAN’T have be this easy. We waited TEN months for 45 minutes of moving wires from one green metal board to another??

The GREAT news is, we’ve become appliance repair people! Our bravado is matched by a high-five with both hands!

The bad news is, we’re now finding ourselves heading to the garage refrigerator, getting out there and remembering that we don’t need to make the trip. And dang it, we’re down 2,000 steps and 100 squats a day.

But – WE ARE APPLIANCE REPAIR PEOPLE! (Okay, sort of. At least for right now.)