Goodbye, Warrior Fridge

In 2004 we finished renovating our house. Mostly.

Part of that was buying new appliances, and I had the coolest new stainless steel mega fridge available. But…

One year later I stared at it in horror. No, it wasn’t out of style.

It was full of maggots.

Hurricane Katrina came and went, and spared our home on ‘the sliver by the river’ any wind or water damage. However, being away from home for 2+ weeks with no utilities tends to do weird things to a place boarded and sealed in the dark in 100+ degree temperatures. Candles melted into the tables, art and photos slid and crumpled out of the frames, and critters happily munched on decomposing food. It was like one of those episodes of Life After People. I suppose you’re wondering why we didn’t empty the fridge before we evacuated. Well, that’s because we thought we were going to be gone for 2 days.

When I first saw the fridge I was so disgusted I gagged. But I quickly became determined to rescue it. It was new after all, but I think somewhere in there I was acting out – wanting to save something. I’d already driven past hundreds of houses where the refrigerators were taped shut on the curbs with something obscene or obnoxious written on it. Most people didn’t even bother to look inside. Too much to bear, I guess. But I prefer my pain to have a face, so I opened it.

Q had just thrown a 5-gallon bucket of chlorine into our swimming pool, which had looked like it was filled with black oil when we first saw it. Now it was a murky greenish-blue and reeked of bleach. He began emptying the fridge of its contents, and I threw all the drawers, shelves, seals and other parts into the pool. I remember coughing a lot. Flies swarmed around the room like a horror film. The stench of rotting organisms filled the air. Maggots were embedded in every fridge nook possible. But I took complete satisfaction in watching them float to their chlorinated deaths. Finally, after 3 DAYS of cleaning, scrubbing, and inspecting several times over, our fridge looked and smelled new again.

I’d rescued something.

Most people tell me they threw out their fridges because they assumed they were damaged beyond repair. Others said the idea of eating food from a fridge that formerly housed maggots made them sick. Great diet plan though, eh? Mmm, I want some chocolate cake… *opens fridge* Aaaack! Maggot memories! *vomit*. Anyway, none of that bothered me. I slayed the demons murdered the maggots so I feel at peace when opening that door.

I still have that fridge today. But in the 5 years since K, living the hard life has caught up with it, and Q and I agreed it was time to get a new one. This coincided with the “cash for clunkers” program for appliances going on this past weekend. We could trade in Katrina fridge for a brand new energy efficient one! (she is a power guzzler, fo’sho). So we finally bought a sexy new stainless steel refrigerator, which will be delivered in a few weeks. And while I’m ready, I’m also sad. Katrina fridge has served me well. When the power was finally restored a month after K, it was fridge to a house full of refugees for a year, and then it still kept chugging through multiple carnival caliber parties, and frequent openings/slammings from 3 years of pregnancy/baby/toddler. Even today it keeps going with broken shelves, sticky seals, flickering light, noisy jamming ice maker, scratched plastic… a history.

But we all know the drill – life, change, moving on, necessary. You can’t patch things up forever. Eventually there is birth, replacement. It’s amusing though to think my mere 6 year-old fridge is among the oldest 10% in the city, and that I’m throwing out my “Katrina fridge” ridiculously later than everyone else. Anyway…

Goodbye old fridge. I’ll miss you. And I’ll tell new fridge stories about what a post-apocalyptic warrior you were.

Tagged as: nola