Ah, those tough days of Covid -- on a serious level, scared the hell out of me. D1 and Joey had Little Man in December of '19, and the Plague was upon us 3 months later. Would our grandson survive this scary virus? Would we get to hug him? Thankfully, it turned out the virus truly was "Boomer Remover," and we indeed only hugged through the patio glass for awhile. But I walked each day -- a lot! And I ate little. I dropped a good 50 lbs. Now that my health results are good despite my ample belly, I joke, darkly, that I need another world threatening pandemic to get me to lose weight.
Little Man clearly doesn't understand inheritance. He poked me several times during our stay, and asked "Grandpa Dev -- why do you have such a big belly?" I told him it was because I ate too much. "So your tummy hurts?" No, I explained, that is the result for young overeaters -- for old overeaters, you just get a big belly. He poked me again and we both laughed. We'll see if he thinks it's so funny when he's left out of the will...
On a silly, materialistic level, the Plague caused delays -- for us, it was getting the new absurdly expensive built in refrigerator. Our 7 year old one broke, and the estimation for a replacement was months and months -- so I bought a temporary one from Home Depot, for $2800, and it included install and removal of the old unit.
A series of ineptitude events followed -- like the crew showing up and saying in heavily accented English "Ay no -- to take built in -- we need BIG crew." We ended up hiring a crew from the kitchen company we used for the new appliances, and they put the new side by side into the kitchen -- it stayed for 3 months until the big unit (ha!) arrived.
Well, I was annoyed at Home Depot, and so called Amex to tell them I wanted a credit for the free install/removal. Instead, Amex must have told HD to give me a TOTAL credit, and HD was too busy to counter that -- so we got a FREE $2800 refrigerator, which was sent to the garage as our spare.
The damn thing lasted about 2 years and then I noticed the fridge part wasn't cooling -- so I called Glynn's Appliances. The tech "fixed" it by removing the barrier between the freezer and fridge, and it worked another several months. Now I noticed the fridge is again warm.
So today I went online and bought a simple, old school freezer above unit -- $600 including delivery and haul away. I actually prefer those -- more freezer space than the side by side for bags of ice for parties.
But the Fates of Refrigeration got me. Turn out there is no such thing as a free refrigerator (at least one that lasts).
As I spend today with zero plans except watching the Canes at Syracuse at 330, I realize how lucky I am to have as a problem a classic First World Problem. The new unit is due from Brands Mart on Friday. The simple ones tend to last longer -- we'll see.
On the subject of homeownership, yesterday I saw again why Pinecrest rocks. I awoke and turned on the faucet, and the pressure was low. I walked around the house to insure Wifey had turned off the outdoor spigots -- she left one running the other night. All were closed. I walked outside to the meter -- no water was running, so I knew it wasn't an issue unique to my house.
I tried to navigate Miami Dade Water and Sewer's web page, and then tried calling th emergency number -- it was Soviet in its efficiency -- I was repeatedly told too many people were trying to call for them to help.
I knew it wasn't a police matter, but still went on my Safer App and simply asked "Is anyone else in South Pinecrest having low water pressure issues?"
Maybe 3 minutes later, I got a call from "Pinecrest Police." The nice dispatcher told me she got my question, and indeed it was a system -wide problem -- and they were working on it. Turned out a main broke in West Kendall, which affected all of us. Within the hour, pressure was back to normal.
But I was impressed. Our mayor Joe lives in the 'hood -- I plan to tell him how Swiss-like our Village is. So despite broken free fridges, some First World issues are positive...
Go Canes! Squeeze the Orangemen, or Orange, as I guess our politically correct world now gender neutrals their mascot...
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