By Frances Bryce, October 08, 2020 — A few who are a little older may know James Taylor sang the song, but he was available for women with a broken heart. I didn’t have a broken heart. I had a refrigerator that didn’t seem to get to me. The morning I opened my refrigerator to get milk for my cereal, I was aware that the refrigerator was not cooling. I adjusted the gauge to cooler and didn’t give it a second thought. Later, I opened the refrigerator door and no cooling had appeared. The freezer, in which I have a top freezer and a lower refrigerator part was blowing cold air. Since my refrigerator was in the building when I purchased the unit, and it looked new with plenty of compartments, glass shelves, drawers, and vegetable/produce holders, it served me well over 20 years.
Instead of calling a service repairman, I decided to purchase a new refrigerator, (never thinking that it would be a problem), selected a model, and went to an appliance section to complete the deal. So I thought, only to be informed that fifteen days later would be the earliest possible delivery date. Upon checking local dealers, no earlier date was available. Most were 30 days, and some were even more than that. I decided a few days to return to my original place, and now instead of 15 days waiting, I had to wait 30 days. So, what I did, I set up water in the freezer to freeze, and then placed that in the refrigerator part, much like the olden days when you had an icebox and an iceman.
I still searched to find a delivery that was earlier, and no dates were near what I had originally said, so I decided I was told that the coronavirus was the reason. It seemed that everyone needed a refrigerator as I did. On September 30th, my promised date of delivery had arrived. The delivery man said as soon as he opened the door said that the banisters and handrails needed to be removed. I ran outside, looking for any truck that had a ladder and looked like they were mending something or fixing something, so I finally went into my gym across the street, City Fitness. They often had somebody doing something. The maintenance guy wasn’t there but the manager said, “Let me take a look.” So he came over and fixed the banister for me, which was great. So now, I’m all set, and then the guy brought the refrigerator to the door and discovered that the storm door had another metal strip and it would not come into my place. What to do? The store next to me just opened the day before and I called to see if I could leave my refrigerator there rather than try and send it back because I knew that would be another 30 days.
So that was in place, and now I had 48 hours to decide if I wanted them to pick it up and try a new model and purchase and [was] told that it would be up to maybe 30 days again. So now I was able to leave it there and inside the store and try to find a handyman to remove the strip so that I could get another date, which we finally did. The customer realized my needs and I ask him how long I could stay there and it was unlimited time. Fast forward, he took my name, I decided to go into Home Depot, walk up and down the aisle, and ask if there was anybody there who could do small jobs and I finally found a man. He had just retired and he was now doing handy work, which was perfect. So he finally said, he took my data, and he said after he left he would come by, which he did. He removed the strip that should now allow me today to get my refrigerator. He did also replaced a ceiling light downstairs and upstairs and he said he would return after I got the refrigerator and replace the banister and the strip. So, I think I have finally found my handyman who did not need to repair a broken heart.
After a while, it was just sort of routine. When I came downstairs I took the one that was frozen, was no longer frozen, put it in the freezer, then took the frozen one out of the freezer. So it just got to be a routine. But of course, I wouldn’t want to do that forever again. Especially when I have the refrigerator downstairs and all I have to do is get the guys to bring it upstairs and plug it in. I’m hopeful.
And I just want to say too, since I found this guy in Home Depot by just going up and down the aisle asking, and so if people who have small problems and don’t need a major thing, that’s a good place to find things where they sell all those products. So that will do. So you just have to do whatever you have to do.
