A Nicer Kitchen

When we first moved into the New House, we found kitchen appliances in the stainless steel decor that so many people like. Well, except for the refrigerator, which didn't exist; the previous owners apparently loved it so much they took it with them to Minnesota or wherever the heck they moved to. Which meant that the day we moved in, I had to buy a refrigerator even though I had just spent my last penny on the down payment. But I did, from a guy who advertised on Craig's List. Sadly, the $250 unit I bought didn't work nearly as well in the house as it seemed to in the guy's yard. Thus, Tuesday, I bought a new refrigerator. And then, since I was in the Sears Outlet Store anyway, and had just saved $700 by buying a floor model, I went and bought a new stove, too.

Wednesday I received a call from Sears' computer telling me that their delivery guys would be here today "from 3:15 pm to 5:15 pm". Some people hate being given a "window" of arrival time but, personally, I don't find a two-hour window to be excessive. I did have to scramble, though, getting into work really early, having lunch at my desk, so I could leave early enough to pick up Michael from medical school and get home in time for the delivery. We made it with one minute to spare.

If we'd been a minute late, of course, the truck would already have come and gone. But since we made it on time, the truck wasn't here and we had time to empty out the old refrigerator (frozen stuff in the big freezer in the garage, cool stuff on the kitchen counter), (throwing out ancient leftovers and expired blocks of cheese), empty out the pantry cabinet in the garage so it could be moved farther from the electric outlet so the old refrigerator could be moved to the garage in its place, disconnect the old refrigerator from the water and electricity and clean the floor of six months' accumulated dirt where it had been. By the time all that had been accomplished, the truck pulled up. It was 4 PM and couldn't have been timed better,

Both Michael and I remembered bringing in the old refrigerator directly into the kitchen through the garage door. However, the delivery guys measured it and apparently that was impossible, as the doorway was about two inches too thin to accommodate the unit. So they had to take it out the front door, around my truck, and into the garage. It took about 200 feet of moving to put it 15 feet from where it had been.

Then they brought the new refrigerator in the same way.

The old unit was black, which I thought wouldn't clash too badly with the stainless steel already present. However, neither that nor stainlaess steel really works for me. Stainless steel makes the kitchen look like it's in one of the restaurants I worked in when I was a teenager. Yeah, good times, but not times I want to relive. And black looks like it's an appliance from the First Church of Satan. So I recommended bisque to Michael, who agreed. Although our kitchen, as a result, is half bisque and half stainless steel, bisque is where we plan to go with this.

So the new refrigerator got carried in, plugged in, hooked up, and put to work.

Next to be installed was the stove.

The old stove was a gas range. I know a lot of people, including Michael, prefer gas. There's something to be said for being able to see the flame, I guess, as well as knowing that if you really want to commit suicide, there's an over to stick your head into. But I prefer electric simply because results are more easily reproducible. "8" is always "8" whether there's a breeze or not, and even when the gas stove says"8" you can never be certain a teeny nudge didn't make it 8.1 or 7.9, which can have a big difference in the outcome of one's omelet. Also, sticking your head into an electric oven, while being equally dramatic, provides plenty of time to change your mind. Suffocation takes seconds; getting baked takes at least an hour at 420°.

I'm not sure Michael really believed me when I assured him there would be an electric outlet behind the old stove even though it was gas. I explained the house was undoubtedly designed to support either type. The saleslady, Martha, at Sears also told him the same thing, as did the fourteen people he undoubtedly asked at med school. Still, I could see the relief on his face once the old stove had been pulled out and there, beneath ten years' worth of dirt and crud, was the required 220-volt outlet.

So he quickly cleaned up the dirt and the guys put in the new range.

The delivery guys then left, and I quickly photographed the old stove, which had also been moved into the garage, to post with an ad on Craig's List.

Then I loaded up the food in very specific order into the refrigerator so we could find stuff. And by "we", I mean "I" because I'm the only one who seems to mind spending 25 minutes rummaging around the refrigerator trying to find the minced garlic or an egg.

I also moved the rarely-used items, like the two kinds of chutney and the green peppercorns, into the old refrigerator, now in the garage next to the big freezer.

By the time I got done with that, I had received two responses to my Craig's List ad. The first one was a guy named Percy, who came right over and bought the old stove for $200, which will actually cover the extended warranty on the new stove.

Percy didn't even mind that I hadn't had a chance to clean the old stove.

So that's what I did today, instead of working on the new novel.