Refrigerator Denial ...

Have you ever had a refrigerator go out slowly? It happened to my family this week.

Hmmm ... does the orange juice seem a little warmer than normal?

No ... the milk is always this temperature.

See ... that jar of jelly that's been in there since the Clinton administration is still cold ...

A refrigerator isn't cheap - and it's hardly something any budget conscience family is ready to handle. Maybe that's why we just hope the catsup is supposed to be warm.

After all - the stuff in the freezer is fine? Ice cream: still frozen.

Ice cube tray: full of cubes.

But remember - even during a power failure: the freezer lasts for days if you do not open it. Yes but we are in denial.

After three days of trying to ignore the problem, someone opens the freezer and sees the ice cream box leaking a cookie-dough sludge into a puddle of water at the bottom of the freezer.

Yes - in a scene right out of Frosty the snowman: our ice tray is empty: melted.

Skip ahead now 3 more days (that's how long it takes to get an EMERGENCY appointment) and we're finally getting it fixed.

Looking back: our denial wasn't so much procrastination. It was knowing how much a new fridge cost ... and not wanting to hear we had to go that way.

So for now ... the old 'girl' is fixed and our neighbors all have their coolers back. But you know what really digs at me?

The premium cookie dough ice-cream was on sale, so we bought a few extra. Man, that premium stuff is hard to scrub off plastic ...