That’s the Kind of Behavior You Don’t Normally See In A Major Appliance

“Why is there blood dripping from your freezer?”  My son-in-law asked, Sunday, as he came in from the garage carrying an armful of water and soda.

“WHAT?!” Was my thoughtful response.

“Blood, there’s blood on the floor and it’s coming from the freezer.”

Anyone who says keeping a body in a freezer is a good idea has never lived through a Texas summer with a freezer in the garage.

Not that I have, or had, a body in the freezer.  Just sayin’…the idea did cross my mind, but not that way..it crossed my mind in a way that would make me laugh at anyone who said it was a good idea. 

I walked out to the 200 degree garage and looked.  Sure enough, not only was my one year old freezer bleeding, it also seemed to have become slightly incontinent as there was a puddle of water on the floor too.

Whiskey.Tango.Foxtrot.

I opened the door and most things were still frozen, the one exception being some kind of gamey ground meat – wild pig or something – that had been given to us a long time ago from someone who thought it was summer sausage.  Since it wasn’t summer sausage, and giving it back was just not an option, I had left it in the freezer hoping it would simply disappear into some sort of time/space portal.

It didn’t.  It did, however, thaw and start bleeding all down the side of the door and onto the floor.

Sigh…I mourned it’s demise, but didn’t actually clean it up.  Maybe I was too heartbroken, or lazy.

One of those.

I went inside to tell Mr. Fix-It (hubby)…really, given enough time and tools he can figure out and fix most anything  – just the day before he’d taken apart, troubleshot, and repaired a $30 weedeater.  My solution, to these little conundrums, is to go to the hardware store and purchase a shiny, new thingamajig to replace a broken thingamajig, but not Mr. Fix-It.   Thank goodness.

“Oh yeah, this happened once before.  Was the red light flashing?” He asked.

“Red light?” I said, dumbfounded.

“Yes, the red light on the front control panel.”

I blinked.

He rubbed his brow, “Okay, on the front of the freezer, there’s a number.  We usually set it on ‘5’, and right above that is a light.  If the freezer is too warm the light flashes red.”

“Really?  I didn’t even notice.”

“That is what happened last time.  I’ll unplug it for a few minutes and then plug it back in and see what happens. That’s what worked the last time.”

Hubby went out into the garage, confirmed the flashing red-light thingy and reaching around the back of the freezer, he unplugged the machine. 

The freezer went off, but so did the fan and other refrigerator, plugged into a  completely different socket in the garage.

Whiskey.Tango.Foxtrot.

From this, seemingly random act, I drew the only logical conclusion.

Apparently, hell bent on punishing us for spend nearly $60 on PEZ the day before, the appliance and electrical gods had conspired in that moment to get even.

‘ — they spent $60 on PEZ –‘

‘ — it’s alright, we’re going to fry a few circuits in their house in 3…2….1…  –‘

See, that’s the trouble with the electrical/appliance gods, you just never know when a madcap PEZ-buying spree will  bring down their wrath.  Had I known, I’d of arranged for all this to happen in February.

Now, even *I* know that if a circuit has the little “GFI” tag on it, which translates to, “now-you’ve-done-it-and-have-to-find-which-circuit-is-tripped-and-push-the-little-button-back-in”, you start the scavenger hunt for the tripped circuit.  The socket the freezer had been plugged into had the GFI tag on it, but no little pushy-button thingy.

The hunt began.

All GFI outlets in the  house – up and running?  Check.

All breakers in box – up and running? Check.

Whiskey.Tango.Foxtrot.

Meanwhile, the freezer’s bleeding and peeing had become more noticeable.   I put newspaper down and proclaimed that part of the operation complete. I considered, momentarily, drawing a chalk outline around the stains but hubby’s growing frustration made me think twice.

This is what my outline would have looked like, only less anatomically correct and more freezer-ish.

We had food packed into both the refrigerator and the freezer, and by now the garage was  250 degrees and rising.

Hubby decided to hook extension cords to the refrigerator and freezer, run them inside to the utility room and plug them in to prevent the beer from getting warm a total loss of all the food inside.  When we plugged the freezer in the red light had stopped it’s flashy-thingy, so hubby’s original hypothesis was proven correct.

Monday morning I called our local, and highly trusted, master electrician. 

“Huh…and you checked ALL the GFIs in the house?”

“Yep. Unless one is in hiding.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“Fifteen years, and we’ve made no changes to the electrical.  The house was new when we bought it, too.”

“Huh…well, it sounds like a GFI has tripped..or maybe it’s the socket itself.  Either way I can figure it out. I can come out there at 2:00 today, if you want.”

“Okay, so I’ll see you then.  And please, can you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Please don’t come in, flip a switch and declare it done. Make me feel good, spend a few minutes scratching your head, and then flip the switch and declare it done.”

“Ha! Ha! Okay, deal.”

I just know, for $400 this guy is going to find a breaker we missed, flip it, and be done in fifteen minutes.

Wonder if he’d consider knocking some off the bill in exchange for a nifty PEZ Batman dispenser, and two rolls of assorted fruit candies?

Guess What?

Wait, did I already use that title in a post…..

*almost looks, then decides she’s too lazy*

Meh..whatever.

Where was I?

Oh yeah…guess what?

It’s hot in Texas.

News flash.  It’s August and it’s hot in Texas.

Hot heat is hot…in Texas.

See?  And that’s in the shade.

 

Where was I going with this?  I forgot, because it’s HOT in TEXAS!

 

Oh, yes…it’s really hot and did I mention it’s hot?

 

Normally, it’s hot in the summer here, but this is Death Valley hot.  No, this is surface of the sun hot.

 

It’s so hot, several radio stations have taken to experimenting with cooking in the car. 

 

Mostly, they got gooey cookie dough and slightly congealed egg whites for their efforts.  

 

Me?   I got blisters on my feet from being lazy.  

 

Maybe I should explain – see I went outside on the back (concrete) porch for a second to I don’t know..see how how hot it is?…and burned my feet in the shade.

 

Yes, it’s so hot that the concrete will burn your feet.  Even in the shade.

 

*note to self – take a moment to slip on those flip-flops from now on, because after 36 years in Texas you can’t seem to remember that it’s HOT in the summer here*

 

Last week, we had a tropical storm visit.  His name was Don.

 

I come bearing gifts!

 As we all prepared for the deluge, somebody shut the front door and Don dissipated over South Texas.

Dissipated.

I can’t count how many times I heard some meterolozo metrozi weatherman marvel at the fact that Don had dissipated. There was much clucking and marveling going on at the Weather Channel.

Marvel this, buddy.

It’s HOT and my brain is a puddle in my head.

Would you care to meet the Wand of Doom?

You keep marveling at our heat and lack of rain, and you will.

You will….just let me find my flip-flops…