An odd twist of events

Perhaps no one cares about this but us….
but it's all too odd not to post it.

About 10 days ago as Den and I were driving along he suddenly 
said that perhaps we should look into buying a new freezer. 
Growing up I was taught that you don't buy new appliances until 
the old ones quit working. So it would have been more like me to 
say, "What's wrong with the freezer we have?" 

But instead, to my very frugal husband who does not like to buy 
anything….I said, "Yes, let's do it!" This surprised him and even 
more so when I said, "Let's go look at some tonight." Den started 
back tracking a little…."well it was just a thought….." 

Then I started pointing out that even though we had the freezer for 
about 7 years the new ones are probably more energy efficient. 
Den shot back with, "7 years?? You already had that freezer 
when I married you nearly 16 years ago." 

That couldn't possibly be true. I did buy a freezer the week after 
Bill died in 1996, but I was sure that one had quit working, and 
Den and I bought another one sometime around 2007.

I explained to Dennis that I always kept track of 
when I defrosted it and it starts in 2007
(you can't see it but there is a 2007 in pencil under the 2008)


 (And just so you'll know if you happen to notice "the week Alex died" ….he was our cat.)

So this freezer was either bought on Nov 30, 1996 (I had notes of it 
in my daytimer) or we bought it around 2007. Den insisted he was 
right. I thought I was. 


It became a mystery. I wanted to know…..did we have this freezer 
for 17 years?  Or did we only have it for about 7? 



I contacted General Electric….they told me if I could locate the 
serial number on it they could tell us the year it was made. We 
hunted everywhere possible on that freezer and there was NO 
serial number on it anywhere! 



Nevertheless, we bought the new freezer and it was delivered 
yesterday. We kept both freezers plugged in over night….the old 
one FULL of food, and the new one getting cold enough to use.



Next morning, I started little by little transferring food from the 
old freezer into the new one. Well guess what? A few hours into 
this the old freezer died. Suddenly and totally gone. 
I mean, what are the chances of that?? 

It had been working great for 17….or 7 years. If we hadn't bought 
the freezer when we did, today we would 
have lost all our food in that old (or not so old) freezer. 
It's 105' today and probably hotter in our garage. 
That food would have melted and gone bad within hours. 


But guess what else happened? 
After we got the last of the food out of the old freezer….
Den kept looking it over, still trying to find that serial number! 
He even looked under the bottom shelf of the door…



 No serial number there either, but guess what he did find… 
This:

Notice the date. I looked at it and said, "You mean that has been 
stuck to the bottom of those shelves since March of 1997? That 
is too weird." 

Then Den adds, "The date is 1997."  

Then it clicked with me, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. This proves 
you were right! No serial number, but now we know for sure 
this was the original freezer I bought at the end of 1996! 
Mystery is solved!"

Who would have thought….the old freezer dies the very day after 
the new freezer arrives. And then the label on the old Costco roll 
package proved how old the freezer truly was. 



I wanted to write this for our posterity.
They will know we truly lived.
And we had a freezer.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

A lucky impulse!
darlene

Grandma Honey said...

That's how we see it too. But also strange that of all the years, why was it 1997 that roll label decided to attach itself to the bottom of the freezer? I mean, why not 2001 or 2007 or 2010? And how in the world did that label hang on for 17 years?

Brock said...

The last lines killed me, Mom. Hilarious.

Anonymous said...

Outside the door in a couple of the pics, I see your swimming pool. How come you never talk about that pool on your blog? There must be TONS of stories about that pool with all the children and grandchildren that pass through your house regularly. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of your pool or anyone in it. Is that right?
darlene

Karen Mortensen said...

What a great story. I love stuff like this.

krheasley said...

This has got to be one of my favorite posts. So so funny!

And glad you got a new freezer just in time!

Grandma Honey said...

Hi Darlene….good observation! I looked back and did find a few posts with the pool sort of in it. My boys swam in that near 6 days a week every summer they were growing up. But since they left we hardly use it at all. It's too hot out there.

Anonymous said...

Everyone could try jumping in the pool?
darlene

Richard said...

Did I get censored? I even held back a snarky comment about Dennis planting evidence!,

Grandma Honey said...

No Richard. This is the only comment I got….try sending it again.

Richard said...

I don't recall my original comment. Something about men, especially ex-cops, more likely to correctly remember the purchase date of a freezer...

Scrapally said...

This was a great post! Fun story to pass on, lots of plot twists! :)

Susan Anderson said...

Always good to listen to that voice, right? And a very tender mercy this was.

=)

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