Save the milk! The MILLLLLKKKKK!

Yesterday, when I took my nightly "sip" of The Husband's daily Coke, I noticed that it was not really all that cold. This was odd, because he had just removed it from our only two-year-old Maytag refrigerator. You know, the brand of appliances that portrays the really bored repair guy on the commercials? Because he has no work to do? Because their appliances so rarely break down?

I commented on its lack of coldness. "Well, it was in the door, closest to the part that opens, and you've been going in and out of the fridge and it's hot out," he replied. So I didn't worry about it.

Those of you smart enough to pick up on my incredibly subtle foreshadowing probably know that I should have worried about it, because this morning we discovered that the fridge is not so much keeping things cold. Nothing beats throwing the baby into the car to make an ice run at 7 in the morning! But I did get to the store and moved the daily-use stuff into the cooler with some ice, and called my friendly neighbors to ask if they had space in their fridge for the rest of it. Luckily, they have an extra fridge, and Mr. Neighbor even came over to help me transport all the condiments and beer. He would have done so even if I had not told him he could drink the beer if he wanted, because he's a good neighbor.

"Is that everything?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "The freezer still seems to be working, so I just needed a place for our refrigerated stuff."

Then I called Sears to get an appointment with their repair service. The first available was for Friday, which is two days from now. Two hot, summer days. Fortunately, they were able to narrow the scheduling window down to "sometime between 9 and 5," so, you know, there was that to console me.

I hung up the phone and glared at the traitorous refrigerator. "At least the freezer still works," I thought. And then I thought again. What if the freezer doesn't work? What if it just takes longer to warm up because it's starting from a colder temperature? I thought about the four days' worth of breast milk I had stored in there. And then I packed it all up along with the frozen pot roast and chicken drumsticks and hustled it right over to the neighbors. Happily, they also have an extra freezer. Apparently, they need to keep lots of things cold.

When I got back, I tried calling Maytag directly to see if they could come earlier than Sears, and the oh-so-helpful automated voice menu guided me through the scheduling steps. After several painstaking, clearly enunciated menu choices, Maytag asked me for my model number, "one digit at a time." Since I am incapable of speaking all of the digits simultaneously, I assumed this meant I should pause between each digit. I assumed wrong. I got as far as "M... F..." when the phone robot interrupted me to say, "I'm sorry, I need you to give me your model number, one digit at a time. If you don't know your mode number, say 'I don't know.'" Heaving a sigh, I said, "M...F..." and the phone robot broke in again to say, "Thanks! Let me check for the next available appointment."

Needless to say, there are many more digits in the model number after "MF." And then the next available appointment was for Saturday. So I hung up on the phone robot and called a local place to see if they could come today to repair the fridge, and of course they could not. They could, however, come tomorrow, and they gave me three two-hour windows from which to choose.

Suck on that, phone robot! In your face, Sears!

To sum up: Maytag and Sears are on notice; but my neighbors are awesome. And it is too muggy to come up with a clever ending.

P.S. Can babies have nightmares? I'm pretty sure mine did last night.