Fridgocide

I have been thinking about this for a few days now so I hope you can cope with my confession.

Yesterday I 'killed' my mothers fridge.

I think I need to start at the beginning of the story for you to get the whole picture.

My mother, I recently have realised, is an elderly lady (early 80's although she looks more like a sprightly woman in her mid 70's). Sometimes her feet and body do not see eye to eye and there are times when they DO NOT cooperate under any circumstances. About five weeks ago she had a fall and wound up in hospital. After a few days the doctors decided that she wasn't getting better as fast as they would've hoped and sent her for a few scans and it came back that she had fractured her vertebrae.

She has spent the last 3 weeks in rehab and is now in respite care while work is done on her place so that she can continue to live independently. The weeks in hospital and rehab have been entertaining and sometimes quite draining. She has improved amazingly well - she has quite an amount of strength that even I (pre 40) am jealous of.

This is not a blog about the woes of having aged parents. No, this post is about the crime I committed against the fridge.

Whilst my mother has been away I have been in charge of keeping the mail sorted, bins and other house things in order.........

Saturday morning and I was winging my way from the bayside suburb I live in to a suburb near my mothers where I was going to pick up the final bits and bobs that a disability/aged care group provide. I realised, as I concentrated in the continual rain, that I would not get back to my mothers house by 10am but closer to 10.30. I texted my sister to let her know. She rang me, I missed it but then quickly rang her back.........

"When we were cleaning out the fridge on Monday I think we might have set in motion the defrost on the freezer" was the first thing I heard her say. "oh" was pretty much all I could say. "She has lost everything she had in the freezer" came my sisters reply.

A feeling of dread came over me. On the previous Monday afternoon my sister and I had discovered that the door of the fridge had come of its hinge. After trying to fix it, we wedged it shut, then told mum she might need a new fridge.

When I finally got to mums house on Saturday I was expecting to see the cork floor looking pretty crap. That size freezer with that amount of ice in it would produce a fair amount of water which, after a few days would have caused all sorts of buckling in the cork tiling in the kitchen!

I looked at the floor while asking how bad the situation was. "There wasn't a lot of water. It took me a few minutes to notice it" said my sister whilst introducing me to the builder that was there giving her a quote for the work. I turned to look at the freezer and noticed a lot of ice. Something wasn't adding up. It dawned on me that we were there 5 days ago (Monday) and that all the ice should've melted in that time. There was a lot still in the freezer. I voiced my opinion and I think we then all agreed that the fridge was dying a slow and painful death, it was just a shock for my sister to see the water and realise that we were the last ones to have anything to do with it!

So where and when did the 'killing' occur?

I decided that we needed a cup of tea after all the cleaning up each person was doing. I put the kettle on. "Mum has tim-tams in the fridge. I think we all need one" I said. (a tim-tam is a chocolate coated, choc biscuit with choc filling. Very yummy) I went over to the fridge and completely ignored the wedge we had put in the door. I also forgot that the fridge door had come off its hinge. I pulled on the door and it went flying. The door landed in the space next to the fridge and the contents of the door went everywhere. There was no way that the fridge was ever going to recover.

After picking everything up, sorting out what was in the fridge could be saved and then helping me recover from the hysterical moment of laughter I was having, my sister suggested we all go and look at a new fridge for mum.

We got a nice one - freezer on top so she doesn't have to bend. I'll be there for the delivery next week. The delivery service include taking the old one away. It's the least I can do. I 'killed' the fridge so I should be the one to give it it's last rites as it is taken away to where all good fridges go.

BUT in my defence I would like to say that the fridge was old and needed replacing when I moved out of mums home 16 years ago.........I just don't think that anyone will believe me if they saw the damage I did.