In our previous house, the fridge was several feet away from the stove and sink. In this house, the fridge is just an arm’s reach from the sink. As I organized the kitchen when we moved in, I put my kitchen shears, which I use really often, on a metal hook on the side of the fridge. And then I put my nice big strainer up there, too. Not so much because I use it all the time (the way I do the shears). But, it took up more room in a drawer than I liked. Then, I got these verrrrry strong magnet hooks, and stuck them on the side of the fridge to hold the shears and the strainer.
Recently, I’ve had to admit that the strainer had come to the end of its safe usefulness. There were sharp pointy parts at the bottom and things were wearing really thin. So, I threw it away, lest I say to myself at some point, “Oh, it’s not really all that bad. I can strain a few more tortellini.” It was that bad.
At Wal-Mart, a couple of days ago, I bought a new strainer.
-
- The attractive, shiny, not-worn-out, new strainer
-
- The hook on the fridge. The handle on the new strainer is a little thicker than the old one, so I tried bending the hook down a little bit, to make a better fit.
-
- Instead of bending down, the white part pulled completely away from the magnet part, and clattered down to the floor. The floor between the fridge and the counter.
I went and got a long, rather thick, dowel to try to pull the metal hook part out. No luck. Which meant I could wait until I’m back in Fort Worth, at some time, where I could go to the Container Store and get a new hook. Or, I could pull the fridge out. OKAY!! It’s not all that hard to pull out the fridge. I just didn’t want to. But I wanted more to not wait for weeks.
-
- And, OF COURSE, the hook had rolled all the way to the back of the fridge, so that I had to pull the fridge all the way out.
-
- Which exposed all the seriously LARGE dust bunnies that were lurking on the floor that, up until a couple of minutes previously, had been safely out of sight underneath the fridge.
-
- I went and got the vacuum cleaner.
-
- After vacuuming for about a minute, one of the tube parts of the cleaner popped off and clattered to the floor. I had to stop, unplug it, then try to figure out what large thing had gotten sucked up and made the problem happen. I couldn’t find any thing, so, put the tube back on
-
- plugged it back in,
-
- And got to work vacuuming up all the stuff that had been behind the fridge and then gotten sucked up and then got spread all over the floor when the tube popped off.
-
- Now, things are back to normal. Kitchen shears in place, strainer in place,
-
- fridge is back in place, and vacuum cleaner on its way back to the closet.
And it only took half an hour! (not the 30 seconds I anticipated to take the cardboard piece off the strainer and hang the strainer up on the side of the fridge)
Those with good sense are slow to anger,
and it is their glory to overlook an offense.
Proverbs 19:11 (New Revised Standard Version)
I tried to find something about not wasting one’s time banging one’s head against a wall (or a fridge). And, really, I was too tired to rant and rave and scream. It was just easier and faster to give in to the reality of gravity and the irony of how the smaller a task seems to be, the larger it can become. I think I’ll go to be early tonight.
Hi Gayle. Always enjoy your blog. Am using this reply box to ask you to send your email & JoAnne’s — have had some computer issues and some email addresses have disappeared. Also, Christmas card i sent JoAnne was returned undeliverable and I saw on FB that they’ve moved, so would like her mailing address as well. Sent her an email after the card came back but never heard from her. Hope all’s well with you.
Hi Beverly! We were in the midst of a busy holiday break when I got your e-mail. Sorry, I didn’t respond. It was great to hear from you.
Natalie came here & we explored San Francisco and went to the Monterey Aquarium. Then we all flew back to Seattle for Christmas with Micah, Patrick & the kids!
I got a new job as an intervention coordinator in a middle school. I love the job. It’s nice to be out of the actual classroom. The workload there has gotten ridiculously overwhelming.
My new job is in a small town in Monterey County just 30 miles south of Salinas. So we sold our townhouse and moved up to central California. We really like it here.
Tell everyone hello 🙂
Oh, address — PO Box 427, Greenfield, CA 93927