Monday, October 08, 2007

Cold Comfort

We are going to have a freezer delivered to our house this Saturday. We had wanted to get one, predominantly to hold the swag that inevitably arrives in, and damn near overflows, our freezer when the school does a fund-raiser, but also to hold the overflow from my mother's refrigerator freezer, which is on the small side. Right now, there's a family-pack of mac and cheese, two boxes of ice cream cones, two or three boxes of frozen vegetables, and some other effluvia in there. It is packed. So, we'd looked around, but the price was about $100 more than I was willing to spend. This morning, I thought: Columbus Day. Columbus Day Sales! And we found it on sale for $87 less than before. Close enough!

The freezer's going to go into our storage room. When I mentioned this to my daughter, she laughed and asked if this meant that she could have the very small refrigerator that's in the storage room now. It's one that my parents bought when they moved in, about twenty years ago; for the last ten years, its been, for the most part, unused, and she's asked for it a couple of times. I just looked at her. Because, she continued, she could keep the guinea pig's medicine in there, instead of the house refrigerator (which she knows I don't like). And I could keep some snacks in there, so it would free up space in our refrigerator. And it would use something that isn't being used now. And -- stop, I said. Its okay. You made a persuasive case, and you didn't whine while you were doing it. You had valid points that you presented in a calm manner. Go for it.

Of course, given our parenting style, we had to add a couple of conditions -- she has to rearrange her room to accommodate it; she has to clean it (yeah, even by my standards, its pretty grungy) and keep it clean -- but bottom line was, sure.

So she's happy. What in the world she'll keep in there, I have no idea. But I was careful not to point out that it would make a dandy stand for the television that's sitting in a box downstairs, which we just use in the van for long trips. It'd even be right next to a cable jack! I mentioned that, sotto voce, to my wife, and she shuddered. Must have been a cold breeze from somewhere.

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Update: The refrigerator is installed. And apparently, the reason it's so attractive is that now she can tell her friends that she has a refrigerator of her own, in her room. Not even the kid with her own PC, television, and phone has one. Bragging rights!

2 comments:

genderist said...

I bet someone will be getting some girly magnets in their stocking this Christmas!!

What cool parents. Great story...

We had a separate fridge/freezer plug put into the garage, but we've not bought anything to go in that space yet. We've not decided what we're going to put there yet... but we do know what will go inside! (all the beverages that just take up space in the regular fridge)

Cerulean Bill said...

As long as I don't find empty beer cans under her bed, I'll be content. Though she did try to take the entire apple pocket that she made the other night (about eight inches long, three inches wide) from the kitchen to put in there. I told her that there would be no nighttime snacking from it, which made me suffer a bit of a drop in image. But then my wife said she could put some pudding cups in there, and she liked that.