In my ongoing series of Minor Accomplishments that Foster a Pleasing Illusion of Competence, today I bought my first ever fridge. I did this via the telephone, with the aid of the internet (competent use of which suggests competence in general) and my mastercard (competently acquired by me without lying to the bank, a sure sign of my ability to cope with the vicissitudes of life at large).
I haven't met this fridge yet, as she lives in the 'Bourn, but her photograph appears in the Preston Good Guys January Catalogue, and, in a fridgy sort of way, she seems a good sort. A pleasing 220 litres deep, with shelves, a crisper, a freezer, and - the catalogue didn't mention this, but one hopes - food cooling potential. In my supreme competence, I have organised for her to be delivered the day that I fly south. If the Preston Good Guys and the Removalist Company that Shall Not Be Named are as competent as I seem to be, she will arrive an hour and a half after my collection of books, musical instruments, and (thanks for nothing, comrades) lion hats. This should give me and my astonishing life skills time to clear a path through the boxes. Then I will connect the fridge to the powerpoint (here my competence will be stretched to its maximum potential, but I trust it will prevail), allow the fridge to cool (assuming that I have indeed signed up for a cooling fridge), and stock it with Melbourne's finest selection of tofus and perishable sweetmeats.
All of this reassures me immensely. My life may be packed up in boxes and strewn across the globe, but dammit, if I can organise myself a fridge, what can I not organise? Pandemonium, consider yourself warned.
6 comments:
Excellent. I imagine, like the person described in Auden's poem, you will soon be fully equipped with a gramophone, a radio, and a frigidaire, although I'm not sure about the gramophone and radio part.
Given your profession, however, I'm sure a grammarphone would prove to be quite useful.
Not only do I have a gramophone, a radio, and a frigidaire, but I've even set in motion the utilities connections that will enable me to run them. Any more of this, and they'll put me in charge of the country.
I'll pop the grammarphone on my Christmas list, and make do with H. W. Fowler's best in the meantime.
Hey you cool multitalented Harlot, is your fridge branded such that you could name it Charybdis?
Why, yea, yt ys indeed un Whirlpool Refrigerator. Thou muste have unto the Good Guys internette catalogue y-looken or thou beest well-ywit with the worlde of refrigerators. Why comes yt that ich in Chauceres Englische have y-wryten? Ich knowe nat. Ich finde ich be thys morninge passinge straunge off my heade.
In the interests of following in the footsteps of my Mum and interfering in the lives of my nearest and dearest (and pretty much anyone else who doesn't object loudly enough) I implore you to leave the fridge unplugged fro 24hrs after being moved, something to do with the gases needing time to settle. It's scientific at at rate.
Them's fine footsteps; interfere away! I ended up overriding your (otherwise compelling) advice to go the fridge-rental avenue, because preliminary researches suggested that if I rented a fridge for a year, I'd have paid pretty much what this fridge cost to buy. However, I wholeheartedly embrace this recommendation that I let Mlle de Whirlpool sit for a day. Her gases will be all the more settled for the delay.
Any further tips on domestic management are most welcome.
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