Refrigerator-ator

When Katie opened the quart of ice cream Friday evening, she found it the consistency of a milkshake rather than a nice frozen box of yum. Other items in the freezer seemed soft, but the ice hadn't yet melted. Carl turned up the knob in the refrigerator section and we hoped for the best. By Saturday morning we knew we had a problem.

Carl pulled the refrigerator away from the wall and spent nearly two hours trying to determine why it wasn't kicking on. He unscrewed the back panel and swept away the gunk, he vacuumed the coils underneath, he dialed the knob to maximum cold in the refrigerator section. Nothing.

In our refrigerator unit the refrigerator is on top while the freezer is on bottom. My sister has the same fridge, so Carl finally agreed to call her family. They didn't answer, so he left a message that went something like this: "Hey, Ed. What do you know about refrigerators? Ours isn't doin' NOTHIN'." Click. Excellent grammar. Very descriptive. Why, I think Carl should consider writing for a living.

A few minutes later Ashley returned our call. They had recently replaced their thermostat--officially known as the cold control I learned--which was located in the freezer section. As she explained this and told me that the numbered knob found in the refrigerator was merely a damper of sorts, I shouted the info to Carl from the comfort of my couch.

Yeah, yeah. He got that.

"Did you try unplugging it for a couple of minutes?" Ashley asked. Yes, it had been unplugged, the light was working, we had power.

"Maybe try turning it off then back on again," she suggested.

I yelled that suggestion to Carl and reminded him that the knob in the upper refrigerator section would not turn it off.

"Well, where do you turn it off then?" Hadn't we already covered this?

"It's the knob in the freezer at the bottom," I reminded him.

Silence.

"Where is it?" he asked, a little annoyed.

As I asked Ashley where exactly the dial was located, Carl hollered, "OK. I see it." Pause. "It IS turned off."

It took a couple of seconds for that to sink in, then Ashley and I simultaneously started laughing. I nearly peed my pants. "Well, maybe you should turn it ON."

Problem solved. I'm pretty sure Hannah had something to do with all of this, but the world may never know.