For the last 6 years my dear husband has had to listen to me complain about the fridge I wanted that we didn't buy. I think it generally goes something like, "I told you so" whenever we are soaking up the water leaking from the fridge we did buy. I decided we had waited long enough and I was going to take the baby with me to a local appliance store and damn it, I was buying us a new fridge!

The long awaited bottom freezer like we had when I was a kid (though this one was not avocado green) was ordered and would arrive in a week. A week later it did arrive but the door opened from the wrong side! Easy enough said the delivery man as he proceeded to change the door (as I was trying to occupy sweet Elliot I could hear the sound of screws stripping - not good!). After an hour he realized that this particular model needed a different part in order to convert from a left opening to right...and the part would take a week. So out went the new fridge and in came the old one and I put every condiment, beverage and bag of frozen veggies back. Fortunately I have a wonderful neighbor who was willing to let me store my breast milk in her freezer so as to not risk a partial thaw (it's liquid gold, can't take any chances)! A week later the part arrived at our house? The appliance store assured me it was customary to send the part to the customer. Makes perfect sense to me! Waste more of the customers’ time switching the door out instead of having it done at the warehouse ahead of time. While he had me on the phone we scheduled the fridge to be delivered again. After 2 more weeks I still didn’t have the fridge AND I had multiple people leaving me messages asking if I had received the part. I believe I can be quoted as saying, “Are you F****** kidding me? Yes I have the part! I called you two weeks ago to tell you this”! I had had enough of the back-and-forth and finally told them to keep the fridge and give me my money back!

I really wanted to support a local business, but it was time to call Old Faithful. I went online picked out the one I wanted and called in the order so that I could once again specify that the door hinges be on the LEFT side. I was so excited! I so badly wanted a new fridge and I really felt like it was now going to happen. A few days later my 2nd new fridge arrived and once again the door opened on the wrong side. Is deafness inherent in all appliance stores? My first thought was that the delivery man would just switch it himself as it was not the exact same model and should not require the "special" part. Heck, even if it did need the special part, it was ok because I still had the one I got for the 1st fridge. Unfortunately the delivery man from Old Faithful said that they don't switch them on site and so I quickly called customer service to find out how to proceed - keep the new one and wait for a service person to come out OR have them bring back in my old one. According to customer service they don't switch the doors for this model and want to deliver me a whole new fridge (they only switch at the factory? I wasn't entirely clear on this one). This time I would at least get to make use of the 2nd new fridge while waiting for the 3rd one to arrive (trying to find a bright side).

And so on October 8th, 2007 I once again took everything out of the fridge and freezer and they delivered our new Bottom Freezer Fridge with a door that opens on the right side!

Labels: Thinking