Annie Dear: The hassles of a throwaway society

There I was on Sunday, happily poodling my way through the New York Times crossword, and its theme was conservation, and one of the clues led me to “throwaway.”

How ironic that is, I said to myself. We have just gone through the absolute epitome of the throwaway society, despite our protestations in trying to avoid it.

Last July we had a bit of a minor makeover in the kitchen department at home, and part of that involved the installation of new appliances, and I finally got the fridge of my dreams. Not that I dream of fridges, mind you, as life would be pretty dull if that’s all your subconscious aspires to, but you catch my drift. Maybe I could include George Clooney demonstrating the virtues of the thing. Yes, that’s the ticket. My dreams are indeed heading in the right direction.

Anyhow, about eight weeks ago, we had a bit of a technical problem in that the ice maker in the freezer failed to live up to its part of the bargain and quit working.

When I think of how I was back in Oz, I have to laugh at myself. Back then, ice in a drink maybe meant a cube or two, but now if the glass isn’t full of ice before any liquid joins it, it’s really not cold now is it? I don’t know if it was true, and if it was, if it still is the case, but it used to be that it was illegal for pubs in Britain to put ice in drinks as it meant that the customer was not necessarily getting his full jigger.

Meanwhile, back at our recalcitrant fridge. As it was obvious it needed help, we would have to call “The Guy.”

“Oh, and while he’s at it, there is a teeny tiny crack in the door just below the water dispenser – he may as well fix that too,” I helpfully added.

Sir called the store from which we purchased said animal, and a serviceman arrived a week later to fix it.

Diagnosing the water valve at fault, he pronounced that he would have to order the appropriate part – oh, and a whole new door – to fix our under-warranty problems.

Three weeks after that, our serviceman appeared, replaced the entire door, and then realized that his water valve did not in fact match this particular fridge.

Back to the drawing board – almost. It appears after the service guy left, the fridge decided it didn’t like having its parts fiddled with and that its water valve was in fact in the best of health, and thus commenced to churn out ice at a pace. So – door fixed, ice working. No worries.

Three days later, Sir received a call from the manufacturer of the fridge, apologizing for our inconvenience and announced that they would replace the entire thing. Sir remarked that it all seemed to be working just fine, but “no” apparently wasn’t an option open to us. We did think this was a tad excessive, but it was insisted upon, so who were we to argue with a behemoth Japanese conglomeration?

And thus the Marx Brothers movie that became our life continued. We had a call from the service people, telling us that the correct part would be in on Tuesday. They then called back to say the fridge was being replaced, so they canceled the arrival of the $1.34 part.

Time continued to march by and nothing was happening, so Sir – now determined to see this thing through to the bitter end – called the Tokyo connection who said a credit had been issued at the store and the manager would call.

A manager did call and was frankly quite bemused by the whole tale. Well, who wasn’t? Turned out the credit had been issued to a store that wasn’t in fact where we bought the blessed thing – but finally that little piece of our French farce was sorted out.

Tick tock, tempus fugit when you’re having a good time. Sir was awakened at 6:50 one morning by a cheery chap – in our driveway, mind you – who had our new replacement fridge. I had already left for work, Sir had to go to work, and the old fridge needed clearing out, so Sir sent our cheery chap away, asking him in the nicest possible way of course, to have the manager call.

Call he did, and it was agreed the fridge would be delivered between noon and 2 on a certain day.

It wanted to arrive again at 6:50 a.m., the phone call being delivered by another cheery chap who was thrilled to tell me we were his first delivery. I sent it him away, I’m afraid with a bit of a flea in his ear.

It ultimately arrived at 11 with a dinged door, which thankfully our cheery chap happily switched out for our old/new door, and the thing is now happily ticking over in our kitchen.

Sir and I have just been quietly shaking our heads. What a monumental saga this has been. Throwaway society indeed – it’s a little like getting a new car just because the gas tank is on empty.

Oh, Harry Belafonte, where are you when we need you?

“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.”