The fridge door

 

Rough day yesterday. 

 

And it just got rougher when kiddo came home from down the street with grandma at 8pm, and still hadn’t eaten.

 

 

So I went to the fridge, and was reaching into the back for some ham, when my hand instead hit sticky.

 

Syrup. Covering everything on the top shelf. When I’d just taken the shelves out and totally washed them and the entire inside of the fridge about a week ago.

 

Very not happy with kiddo… and of course, this had apparently been there since breakfast, and was now requiring more than just wiping to remove.

 

 

But nowhere near over yet. 

 

As when I had the door opened all of the way to get to the mess, the door suddenly fell off. Just like that… dropped down onto the floor.

 

 

This fridge is not even 3 years old yet. It had been a middle of the line kenemore model, picking only because it was the single fridge I could find in any of the major appliance selling stores that would fit under the low 1950’s build cabinets in this house. And it only fits under by less than a quarter inch. Previous owners just had their fridge in the middle of the floor space blocking cabinets. 

 

So far, one shelf has had the plastic parts holding the glass to the metal frame totally break apart, another shelf has the plastic cracked, and the plastic frame on one side of the upper drawer bent or twisted and will no longer hold the drawer. 

 

And now this. And we really aren’t that hard on this thing…. plus, there’s only two of us. How in the world would this thing stay in one piece with a large active family?

 

 

So anyway, I had a big problem on my hands. First I propped the door back into place, and asked kiddo to get the cats gathered out of my way because the fridge door broke off. So what does she do? She walks directly into the kitchen and pulls on the fridge door. GRRR. So this time instead of just dropping straight down, it not only drops but the top flies over flat… making everything start flying out of the door. Sigh. So I grabbed a dishpan that happened to have been sitting nearby and relocated door contents into that and the lower shelf.

 

So now that the door was totally away from the area, I could see a few parts on the floor. Great. So I flip the door on its side to reassemble the hinge… and come to find out that it didn’t just come undone. The entire port thing where the hinge goes into the door had stripped out of the door itself! 

 

 

Really not good. 

 

Propped the door back into place, again… debated throwing everything into a laundry basket to take to my moms, but knew hers wouldn’t have enough space to have it all fit. Did I mention yet I just went shopping today?

 

Ended up running down to her house to grab her cooler. Which I couldn’t find. And hadn’t grabbed my phone. So had to come back, call her to find out where it was, and then run back down to get it… trying to avoid extra talk with the chatty neighbor who was watering her flowers. Got most of contents of the fridge part into her big cooler and my little one… tossed a few random bags of frozen veggies in to act as ice.

 

 

Back to checking out the door… I remembered that the hinges are reversible. So that you can put them on the left, with the handles on the right, and the door opens right, or put them on the right, with handles on the left, and the doors open left.

 

And so this becomes the plan… as the port thing wasn’t used for the handles, so it wouldnt matter if it were missing if the hinge was on the other side.

 

First stop: tools. And my vice grips are mysteriously missing. As is the phillips version of the screwdriver size I need. I come up with a cheap flathead one in right size that will make do, and a set of pliers.

 

I got nowhere with the set of pliers for the bolts. So I end up in the garage, digging through a household stuff box.. finally find a cheap bike repair kit that has a thin wrench thing in the right size… and in the same box find the charger for my drill. Grab drill, get it charging, get back to fridge.

 

Got bolts loose, eventually. Got first set of screws loose without too much trouble. Got handle moved to other side with no real issues. But things were going too smoothly.

 

 

Next set of screws, the ones that held the top hinge, wouldn’t budge. At all. Grabbed drill off charger, and couldn’t find the right screw bit in the set. Sigh. 

 

Back down to moms to her shed, borrow a bit from her drill. Can’t get the padlock to go back on right in the dark, and motion lights from garage refused to kick on. Finally get it wrestled back on.

 

Get back to the fridge, and the screws still aren’t giving. Even on the slowest speed and with the best pressure I could get it, the drill just tries to jump and attempt to round the screws. Not good.

 

Go back to attempting with my cheap screwdriver… and end up bending the metal of the screwdriver. Sigh.

 

And now all three of the cats are back loose and in my way. 

 

I propped the door back into place, and in doing so discovered that changing one door is also going to require me changing the freezer door, as they share one part. Sigh. 

 

Consider just taping the door closed and leaving it to deal with in the morning, as it’s now almost 11pm. Discover that both rolls of duct tape are now missing from my toolbox as well. I’ve got to move that thing to a less reachable location. Kiddo offers me scotch tape.

 

 

Decide that since she’s up anyway, I’m going to be that bad parent who drags their kid out shopping when its nearly midnight, and run to walmart to replace the missing screwdriver. End up getting one that has the six different options, mainly because with my luck, I’d have grabbed the wrong size if I just grabbed one. Also grabbed a bag of ice for the coolers, in case luck continued.

 

Run through mcdonalds drive through to get the kid the dinner I was trying to make before the syrup before the door… though she’d grabbed some cheese and crackers out of the food stacks earlier in the mess.

 

Get home to attack again, and with a decent quality screwdriver the screws come right out.

 

 

Get the lower hinge reassembled… though one piece fits super loose and I’m not sure its supposed to. Have I mentioned yet I have no instructions for this, and my internet has been acting up the past few days?

 

Figure out that to reassemble the upper hinge, I have to have the lower freezer hinge ready to be reassembled as well. Which I hadn’t even removed yet. Remove that, which requires first removing the top one… so trying to work fast as the freezer is now standing wide open. Get the door handle switched, get the lower hinge ready so I can get the upper fridge hinge ready. 

 

Get fridge door back on and opening. 

 

Get bottom freezer hinge on. Get top one mostly on… and it refuses to line up right. Sigh. 

 

Shove previously useless pliers between the fridge door and freezer door to try to get it in right position… and finally works. 

 

 

130 in the morning now. 5 and half hours after I’d started. But its finally done and fixed. (Though I do have one random spare screw, and am missing one plastic peg that fits into one of the unused handle holes.)

 

Kiddo is still awake, as I’ve been too busy to notice really and force her to go to bed.

 

 

She comes into the kitchen, and in that attitude tone tells me “you put it back on backwards.”

 

Yes, she is still alive…. but only because my arms hurt from repeated door lifting.