Ode to Ollie

Severe lack of updates, so again, I'll cheat by posting something I wrote a while ago. My fridge is not dead again, thank you.

10 things you shouldn't do if you think your fridge is sick...

First off, a little update. The third repairman has come and gone, and now, beyond a doubt, poor Ollie is headed for the junkyard. A side note here: Ollie is the name of my fridge, which is short for Oliver, who is the lead character in Oliver Twist, which is a book about a starving orphan. It's a pretty subtle hint on the state my fridge is in on usual days. Back on topic: Come Monday my spanking new fridge will be here, and hopefully with it my glorious ice cream-eating days will return. As an ode to my fridge (and mainly because I have nothing better to do right now, since there's no food in the house) I will be writing a top ten list of what NOT to do if your fridge threatens to break down.

Numero Uno: Don't assume that your fridge is merely grumbling if you hear it give a mechanical shiver, followed by a moaning clang. Fridges are tough creatures, and hardly ever shiver or moan unless they're near death.

Number Two: Don't screw the temperature dial all the way up, and then all the way down. In fact, don't touch the temperature dial AT ALL unless you want the blame to land squarely on your ass when the shit hits the fan. The better thing to do would be to pretend nothing happened. When the melted ice-cream starts to drip out of the fridge, plead innocence. Take acting classes if you're not confident of being able to pull it off.

Number Three: Don't put off calling the repairman in hopes that "it'll get better by itself". Sickness in fridges are like gonorrhoea in people (or animals), they never go away by themselves, no matter how much you will 'em to. Get a fridge doctor to come ASAP, and hopefully save yourself money you could otherwise spend on something more worthwhile, like a pink (gag) Hello Kitty mini-fan, instead of a new, bigger, better fridge.

Four: Don't open and close the freezer door to check the temperature. Apparently the door hinges get loose if you do that too often. By too often, I mean every 6.3 minutes. Besides, the food inside rots faster cos you're letting the cold air out every time you open the door, and rotten food is a bad thing. How bad? One word: Salmonella. *nods*

Number Five: Don't flip the main switch on and off every half hour to try and kick-start the damn thing. It'll probably hasten its demise (now I know) and besides, you could get electrocuted, have an irregular heartbeat for the rest of your life, which would result in you needing one of those pacemaker thingies for the rest of your life too. That is, assuming you don't die.

Number Six: Don't place your hands on both sides of the fridge and shake the thing (it's heavy). This is doubly important if there's heavy stuff on the top, like XO bottles, china vases, potted plants, eggs, miscellaneous breakable stuff. The stuff could fall down and break, resulting in more yelling by other people in your general direction, but more importantly, it could fall down and break on YOUR head. (Ouchy wawa) Which funnily enough also results in more yelling by other people in your general direction. You'd think they'd offer sympathy, tsk tsk.

Seven: Don't try to eat all the ice-cream in the fridge if you know the stuff's not going to make it through the night. I'm still reeling from the effects of eating 1 full litre of Cookies 'n' Cream in one sitting, although that IS one lifelong dream fulfilled...

Numbers Eight, Nine and Ten: Likewise, don't drink all the wine, cos that's definitely gonna give you something worse than a stomach ache. If you're like me and don't listen to good advice, not even if it bites you in the ass, please don't drink and operate machinery that could chomp through your arm if you're not careful. Oh, and don't drive too.

That's my community message for the week. Don't drink and drive.

The End

(Yeah, I cheated. Apparently there's nothing more I did to break the fridge. If you come up with any remember to tell me sometime)