From: mzraly@ra.cs.umb.edu (Cheesy Vitriol)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Refrigerator Downtime
Date: 4 Oct 92 09:02:56 GMT
Organization: UMass/Boston Dept. of Math & CS
Originator: mzraly@ra.cs.umb.edu


The refrigerator in our apartment died last week, in a rather
mysterious way.  This has led to a number of peeves.

My wife and I had noticed that the refrigerator section was a bit too
cold: milk was freezing in the jug, and a large chunk of ice grew from
the area just under the freezer, which we dubbed the Ice Wart.  We
decided to get rid of it all by turning the refrigerator down just a
wee bit, and the Ice Wart melted.  No problem, we thought: we turned
the cooling up again... and nothing happened.  Worsse, the refrigerator
stopped cooling altogether.

We noticed this on Thursday.  Friday morning after work, I left a
message with the landlord's son, who was working in the store they run
on the first floor or our building.  I told him that our refrigerator
was broken and that we would not be back from school until about 4 pm.
We went upstairs and before going in to school we spent an hour
removing spoiled food from the fridge and packing the rest in
store-bought ice to preserve it.

Peeve#1:  $1.15 for a 5-lb bag of ice.  It used to be $0.89

We got back from school that afternoon and noticed that the traffic
light at the intersection in fromt of our building was out and a cop
was directing traffic.  We went upstairs.  Half an hour later power was
back, but not our refrigerator.  The landlord never showed up that
day.

Peeve#2:  No-shows

That evening we bought some more ice for the fridge, put it in, and
went to work.

Come yesterday morning the landlord was outside his store so I asked
him if he got my message about the refrigerator not working yesterday.
He told me that the power was out yesterday, which I knew.  I told him
that the refrigerator stopped working *before* the power went out and
has not recovered.  I asked him to come by in the afternoon, bought
some more ice, and went to bed.  He never received my message from the
previous day.

Peeve#3:  People who tell you that they will deliver a message for you,
	then don't.

Don't be silly, of course he didn't come by.  Unfortunately we now have
to contend with the leaks from the melting ice in the fridge.  We've
gone through quite a number of old newspapers sopping that stuff up.

Peeve#4:  It's very unlikely that, even if the landlord comes by today
	(Sunday), he'll be able to do anything.  This implies that this
	will all have to be handled during the week, when my wife and I
	are home and awake for maybe two or three hours a day.  More
	than likely he'll either wake us up or come by when we're not
	around,in which case he can't do anything because his key no
	longer works on our door.  (We didn't change locks; his key is
	just old and worn down too much.)

Peeve#5:  Normally this would be a great time to get rid of all that
	meat that's in the freezer -- all that ground beef and chicken
	and sausage that has been on sale over the past few months.
	Unfortunately me have too much food and too little time; we'll
	probably end up giving a good chunk of it away.

Peeve#6:  Ten pounds of fresh tomatoes, molded to death.  What a
	waste...

Peeve#7:  There were some good sales this week on stuff that we can't
	take advantage of now that der Fridge ist an der Fritz.

Peeve#8:  Apartment living.  If we ere in a house with our *own* fridge
	we could just deal with it.  Unfortunately the appliances in
	our kitchen belong to the landlord, so nothing gets taken care
	of until he's good and ready for it, which isn't often.

No doubt more peeves will come out of this mess...

-- 
Mike Zraly		They don't respect us, so let's surprise 'em
mzraly@cs.umb.edu	We'll drop the Big One, and pulverize 'em
				-- Randy Newman