We keep finding water running in rivulets along the grout of our terra cotta kitchen floor.
If we had a dog she’d be in deep doo-doo.
But we don’t so we had to look elsewhere for the culprit.
In the years we’ve had our fridge we’ve noticed that the freezer forms a thin layer of ice along the bottom shelf.
This sheet will melt, drip and leak onto the floor and run obstinately past the oven and cabinets until it exhausts itself and trickles out.
It happens so infrequently that it takes a while to remember what the problem is… then one of us will have a brain-wave,
“Maybe I dreamt it but…could it possibly that ice problem we encountered a year after we moved in…?”
We’ll both nod and open up our freezer to the tell-tale sheet of ice and gently chip away with a blunt butter knife and all is well for several months or even a year or two.
A couple of weeks ago though Hubs decided to put on his repairman hat and get to the root of the problem.
If truth be told I think he had some time on his hands and needed a project…
He went to his favorite place for help…YouTube…and found this unknown guy who sets up his phone on video mode and records himself fixing hard to get to stuff…who does that?!!
I’ve known women who video and post themselves applying make-up, coloring hair, singing karaoke, making iced fancies, tying scarves around their necks, solving calculus problems on a white board…whaat? that’s weird too I suppose!?
Back to the iced up freezer.
I was busy writing and I could hear someone chatting away to Hubs,
“New friend?” I asked as I wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He doesn’t get out much!
“Yep,” he looked up at me and patted his knee, “come watch, it’s fascinating, this man’s a genius!”
He was unscrewing metal covers to reveal coils and complex wire configurations and neatly corralling washers and screws to replace later when I left Hubs virtually walking through, what seemed to me to be, a very convoluted process.
The project became a joint effort although I was mostly there to boost his spirits and pass comments as we emptied the frozen food into our garage chest freezer and I threw out long forgotten items lurking at the bottom.
We pulled the fridge away from the wall, unplugged it and Hubs took off the freezer door, lifted out the drawers and unscrewed the wire baskets.
Happily Hubs is not the Norge man!
“Ahh, now I know why the commercial always shows the Maytag repair team sitting around with their feet up,” I said as I wiped the logo on the front of the stainless steel doors, “…they never get called out because men like you and your virtual buddy insist on tackling complex-large-appliance-jobs themselves…”
He laughed.
He unscrewed the front and back panels and there were those wires, coils and other complex electrical configurations that I’d been witness to during my brief perch on Hubs’ knee.
At least we were unplugged…
“Will it ever work again?” I asked eying the array of screws and washers and other bits and pieces neatly piled on random terra-cotta tiles.
“Go get me my hairdryer will you?” he said sweetly.
“Why? No-one can see your bed hair, it’s under your cap…”
“I need heat,” he said tousling my hair, “bring yours too if you would.”
He instructed me to blast hot air directly at the water hose coming out of the back of the freezer while he melted the ice off the coils in the front.
I grew a little disconcerted as the coils began to drip…
I re-read the warning, still attached to the handle of my hairdryer, that clearly stated:
Keep Away from Water
Danger
I flipped the label to the other side:
Do Not Remove
it cautioned and
Death by Electric Shock
“Are you sure this is safe?” I asked. But he couldn’t hear me over the din.
After about an hour and several neck spasms and wrist aches later the thin water tube I was defrosting cleared and drained safely without a mishap.
“We’ve done it!” I said when the dryers were off and all we could hear was a steady drip.
Then it was time for Hubs to put everything back together…
and he managed it with only a few bits and pieces left over!
Time to plug in and push the unit back into place.
Relieved to have survived a close scrape with death and live to see another day
I commented,
“What happened to good old fashioned turn-the-fridge-off-and-defrost?”
“Takes too long and besides…this is the way the expert said to do it!”
“You mean the genius guy on You-Too?” I said wryly.
“Yes, the genius guy on YouTube,” he said with a smile and a hug, “and me!”
Hopefully we won’t have to venture onto the hazardous hairdryer and water battlefield again for a few years!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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2019-12-18 00:51:02
Harumph!
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