My fridge isn’t speaking to me. Come to think of it, my dishwasher is pretty annoyed with me, and the stove is in a frightful tizzy. I’m not on good terms with my washer or dryer, for that matter, and I swear the dryer gave me the stink eye.  They’re all mad at me because I don’t give them the attention they deserve.  Well, can I help it if I’m too busy and there are not enough hours in the day for working, blogging, walking my dog and all the other stuff I need to do?  Must I also be tending to the care and maintenance of my appliances?

Lately, my fridge has been giving me the cold shoulder.

Of course, this is all lost on my fridge, whose refrigerator side has turned into a freezer.  It looks at me, defiantly, and asks,

“What? You don’t like your oranges frozen? So what are ya gonna do about it? When are you gonna finally get someone in to fix me? Look at me, I’m a mess!”

Ok, so it’s been a few years since my appliances have had any maintenance. Right about the time that the warranties ran out, I’d say. Can I help it if I have my priorities in a different place? Repairs cost mula and when it comes to dropping cash, I’d rather spend it on travel, new outfits and the latest electronic gadgets—not repairs.  Besides, frozen oranges aren’t so bad, right?

The fridge doesn’t appreciate my logic and its motor kicks it up a notch. Grumble, GRUMBLE, it seems to be saying rather loudly, reminding me that I use my fridge daily and depend on it for its ability to keep my perishables cold.

My handy friend, Gale (see The Real Ms. Fix-it), told me that I could be doing some preventive maintenance myself, like vacuuming out the vent below the fridge as well as beneath it. Let me get this straight: I should be getting on my hands and knees, to remove the ventilation panel and then vacuum under the fridge, too?  I’ve never heard of anything so crazy!

I mean, have you looked under my fridge lately—which hasn’t seen the light of day in over 13 years?  I’m pretty sure there’s a haunted house in there. I even saw Nancy Drew trying to solve a mystery in the crevasse between the coils and the back wall. The mystery of the frozen broccoli.

This is when I begrudge being a homeowner.  Why do I have to take care of everything? Why, oh why, can’t I have a landlord like I did back in the days when I lived in a rental?  How easy it was then, to just call Mrs. Lee. She’d either send someone over to deal with whatever the problem was or she’d tell me to hire someone and have them send her the bill. Voilà! Problem solved.  Even when I had rats in the attic. One call to Mrs. Lee—in a sweat-induced panic—and the exterminator was at my door, at the ready with his traps and jar of peanut butter.

And my fridge isn’t alone in complaining.  All my appliances are spewing venom these days. They’re all aging and aging fast. My dishwasher has gout and is on its last legs. My microwave is going through menopause and is having hot flashes. It refuses to warm anything in less than six minutes. My stove, which has one burner that declines to spark a flame, has definitely seen better days. When it hears me say this, it responds, rather cheekily,

“You’re not in the pique of prime yourself.”

As for the washing machine and dryer, well, they’ve always held a grudge, mostly because they were long ago relegated to the garage, and not in the kitchen with the others.  So, all I can say is,

“I should just throw out the lot of you and start over!”

And just like that, I mosey on down to my local appliance store, determined to buy a new fridge. Which I do—energy efficient, I might add—along with a new, water-saving dishwasher.  Whereupon, I plunk down my credit card and say to the saleswoman in a rather satisfied voice,

“Charge it, please!”

As for the stove, and the washer and dryer? For now, they’ll just have to sulk. I’m not made of money, you know.