Self-Reliance

The fridge mostly died on the weekend. Using the freezer (which still worked, barely) and the ice chest, we managed to save nearly everything except some leftovers. Of course, even throwing out that bit of pasta and one last serving of tuna salad bothered me a little.

Throwing out a whole fridge, however deceased, should have been worse. But we never really considered repair. Well, I did, briefly, but the thought of trying to find someone on a Sunday morning, waiting days for a service call, and probably it couldn't be repaired anyway, and then what about the Chicken Fajita frozen pizza and array of condiments? So we did what everyone does and went to Lowe's (open 8:00 to 7:00). Less than 24 hours later, decay departed, life resumed.

So what happened to Yankee ingenuity and thrift? Wouldn't it have been more satisfying to get the old brown relic repaired? After all, I called appliance repair back home in Massachusetts, when the heating element of the oven shorted out. And in Maine I'm more inclined to try to fix things myself, as if the heroes of the 19th century - Emerson and Thoreau and all the rest - were still alive to help. But of all the conveniences of our convenient lives, fresh food always to hand is sacrosanct, and anything that interrupts our ability to make ice must be rectified, ASAP. We believe in Freon, even in self-reliant Maine.