The fridge stops working. We're not quite sure what happened and I'm still not sure it's back to normal, but the freezer compartment coils got all iced over and stopped cooling. Nice. Michael found a puddle of water in front of the fridge a couple of days ago. He goes to work but promises to come back as soon as he can. So next thing you know we're quickly running around taking frozen corned beef briskets and chicken breasts to a neighbor. Then he goes and gets me something we've been wanting anyway, a small chest freezer for the basement. I get to drive into Wilkes-Barre to the only place in the whole county which sells dry ice. I meet a very amusing guy there who is really chatty so it takes me a while to break away and get home to save the groceries. He was preparing for Black Friday, which, in the ice business, as you must certainly guess, is the Friday of Fourth of July weekend. Beer must be kept cold. So once I get home, Michael has already got the cute little freezer in the basement. We use the dry ice in the top part of the fridge until the bottom freezer part dries out. So far, the fridge is working again. But I don't quite trust it yet. And it blew almost a whole day which could have been spent doing something else. Kudos to Michael for figuring out what was probably wrong and for getting the fridge working again. Of course, he has lots and lots of experience with fridges, dry ice and such from work. Weirdest thing was that although most things did okay with the dry ice (the lettuce froze), the water in our filter pitcher tasted really weird. Must have been slightly carbonated by the sublimating CO2. I threw that water out.
Second irritant. I almost never use my cell phone. So I have one of those pay as you go plans. I have to buy 100 dollars worth to get minutes that don't expire every three months. When you use your phone only once a month or so, it's very easy to let them expire. Trust me. But this time, I let a year's worth expire. I have no idea how much money I lost. I don't even want to think about it. But such is life. When I was renewing and asked the young lady why I didn't get a reminder email or call or something she said, "That would be the customer service department. I can't help you with that." I'm thinking any time you're talking to a customer, it's customer service, but that's just me. I just let that one go. Even losing my minutes, it's still cheaper this way than any other kind of phone plan I could use for a very occasional use phone that must work all over the US.
The last example was user error. Mea culpa. But the next is one of the most bizarre things to happen to me in a long time. Ordinarily, I use a credit card to buy stuff, but yesterday I wrote a check at the grocery store and it was denied. At first, I was unbelieving. I knew how much money there should have been in that account and that we also have overdraft protection. Little did I know that the company that denies your check has nothing to do with your bank balance! Ha! Did you know that? I wish I had. Instead, I practically had a heart attack on the way home thinking up all sorts of dire scenarios including but not limited to ID theft. I hurriedly put all the frozen food away and checked my bank balance. All okay there. So after several phone calls, I finally found why they denied my check. It's because they had no history on my account, i.e., I don't write checks! In fact, I write plenty of checks to the electric company, mortgage company, etc. but that doesn't count evidently. You have to write a certain number of checks to merchants in order to be acceptable to Telecheck. I'm just so glad this wasn't something important. I just used my credit card instead and went home with my frozen food. When I finished my conversation with the Telecheck lady, she said, "The next time this happens, please call us from the store so we can work things out." I explained that there was no way I was going to stand there and let ice cream melt while we figured out what was wrong. I didn't add that I wouldn't take the time to do that in a store especially when it was the fault of their system which couldn't recognize a valid customer with more than sufficient funds to pay for an item.
The photo? Random. Except that I get to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the organ at church on Sunday. The Fourth of July doesn't fall on a Sunday very often.
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