O frabjous day...

The refrigerator has arrived and it is wondrous to behold!

The drawers are clear, not opaque. Every shelf is adjustable - even the ones on the door. It can hold a 2 liter bottle of soda, a gallon of milk - standing up!

Another improvement over the old one: it's cold.

Now we can't wait for the plumber to come install the water line so we play with those gadgets too.

The guys who came to deliver it and remove the old frig were stellar - these were huge machines to maneuver through tiny doorways. They not only did it - but there were no dings - and they were not irritable; in fact, they were very pleasant and cheerful. They wouldn't take a tip either - just told us it was against company policy and they were happy we were pleased with the service!

Lowe's was already pretty high on the retail food chain - but it just moved up yet another notch!

Puddle jumping

A puddle in your yard can be a good thing. A puddle in your kitchen surrounding your refrigerator is not.

This is an older house with a galley kitchen (read crappy little dark tunnel with appliances in it). New appliances are not the same size as their older, more petite counterparts, making finding a new refrigerator less fun. There are simply no spots available for a frig the size of a Sherman tank. (We can't fit a table or a dishwasher either - but the frig is kind of required.) Of course, the price tag tends to cut down on the amusement as well.

So we found a new frig for only twice as much as we had planned to spend. But it has nice shelves, an Energy Star rating, unnecessary devices (ok, so I'm secretly kind of looking forward to having an ice machine and a little water dispenser, even if they aren't on the outside of the machine and crank up the price!), and a glorious 21 cubic feet of space to fill up - quite a step up from a 15.6 cu. ft.

Also, the inside is white, not teal!

Tomorrow morning the Red Carpet Delivery and Installation Team will arrive, my VISA will melt, and hopefully the plumber we called to install a new little water line to make the water dispenser piddle in one's water glass will return our call and schedule a visit.

The whole deal, including the 2 extra years of warranty the sales guy sold us (mostly by not trying to sell us - so endearing!), will still cost less than the two new sets of snow tires we're grinding to nothing during the least snowy winter our state has ever seen.

Hoping the frig purchase is more productive than the snow tire purchase. (In all fairness, the storm we had last week - 7 or 8 inches of sleet and freezing rain - did make the snow tires worth the price! So did the AWD!) Probably cold juice, bacterium-free food, etc. will seem worth the expense. Diving into the garage for a glass of cold water and praying nothing we plan to eat is turning into a viral condo is already making the new frig sound like a real bargain.

Three cheers for Whirlpool!