Exactly two days and seventeen hours ago the refrigerator and freezer in our kitchen stopped working. It’s okay though. We are an American family. We have another one in our basement.
My wife and I loaded up the contents of the broken fridge into laundry baskets and hauled them down to the basement. The basement fridge is one of those old ones that just keeps working, the kind that is used to keep a large bag of ice, beer, fishing bait, and the Thanksgiving leftovers.
The Thanksgiving leftovers are gone, and we don’t fish, so there weren’t any worms. We did have to remove the large bag of ice and consolidate the beer bottles into one six pack cardboard container. After we finished loading everything into its new home, I started thinking out loud, “What if we didn’t get a new fridge for awhile, just left everything down here for, I don’t know, a month or something? How would our lives be different?”
My wife quickly responded, “We would probably eat out alot more.”
My thoughts were more noble. That maybe we would eat less, or eat healthier or become more aware, aware of what, I’m not sure, maybe starving children or how much we waste.
So let’s see. The following is a chronicle of the first three days of Basement Fridge.
Day 1
I opened the refrigerator 7 times today, expecting to see our food. Instead, I was greeted every time with the odor of warm refrigerator. I only swore once about having to go to the basement to get what I wanted. I was however, running late for school that day, and going to the basement just seemed like it would take so long, so I didn’t pack my lunch. I bought Subway instead. Dinner that night was leftovers.
Day 2
I was gone all day, so I wasn’t impacted too much by Basement Fridge today. I did have a chance to pack my lunch for the trip I was on. Once again, the idea of knowing everything I needed and grabbing all of it, and bringing it all upstairs and then taking it all downstairs, seemed so daunting. Pitiful. I ate out for lunch. My wife may have been on to something.
Day 3
My wife, who I should address as Elizabeth from now on, because her identity is much more interesting and fuller than just being my wife. Anyway, Elizabeth decided to make blueberry and banana pancakes for breakfast. As I observed the process, I realized she had figured out a couple of things while I was gone…
1. We have two children who are wonderfully capable of going to the basement to retrieve things from the fridge. It gives them another chore to do, to help out around the house. Elizabeth tried to make it sound cool, like they were Laura Ingalls Wilder going to the chicken coop to get eggs, or milking the cow. (We’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie). I’m not sure if they are buying it. But it has helped them overcome their fears of the creatures that lurk in the basement when we are not down there. They do however, suspect that the creatures may be luring them in to a dangerous confidence, that when they least expect it, BAM! They remain cautious.
2. It is winter. Winter in Indiana is cold. There is a door in the kitchen that leads to our back porch. This porch was a temporary fridge for the milk as it was being used all morning for the coffee, the pancake batter, and to drink. We just have to make sure we don’t forget it out there, accidentally leaving it for the neighborhood raccoons to drink after they eat the crumbs from our recycling bins.
I helped clean up after breakfast. There are 11 steps to the basement.
