3 fridges later....

today marks the first day of the third refrigerator i've owned since moving out on my own. i moved out in october of 2004, so if you do the math, that's a little over 6 years which would make the average life span of a fridge in my apartment approximately 3 years, which means i should expect to be shopping for my 4th one in 2014. good to know. i'll start saving now.

cuz it's a bitch to buy a new fridge! if every one's like me, you don't really plan the purchase of a new fridge. what usually happens is the fridge you currently own craps out on you and you're forced on the drop of a dime to run out and get a new one. this time around, that was $500 right out of my pocket! motherfucking OUCH!

i've been a lucky dude though cuz this is actually the first fridge i've paid for. so if we do the whole averaging thing again, that's a little less that $170 a fridge.

the first fridge came free. well, free in price tag. but it cost a lot of headaches and pain. my girlfriend at the time found someone giving a fridge away in jersey city. it was a really big, really old fridge. we had to convince my friend Chet to borrow a flatbed from the tow truck company he worked at the time to haul it to my house. but that's not the half of it. this fridge was so big, that to get it out of the house, we had to remove the front door, take the fridge out, and put the door back in place. luckily, once we got back to my place, there was no door removing. but angling it and making it work was a pain in the ass as well.

but it was all good cuz here i was, moved out of my mom's place with a fridge! finally i could keep my beer and groceries cold! i finally felt like a grown up!

this fridge was old and i felt the time we had with it was all borrowed time. but for free, it did it's thing. and about 2 years into it, it crapped out on me. time to get a new one.

i'm a lucky bastard when i think about my second fridge. my mom had heard me complaining that i had no fridge. she couldn't stand the thought of her son living alone with no fridge. so she offered to buy me one. off we went to PC Richard's. we went in, purchased a reasonably priced fridge and left. they delivered it a couple days later and even took the big, old bastard with them. sweet deal!

the new fridge did it's thing for a year or so till the compressor crapped out on it. i called a fridge repairman who came by and mumbled something about how, 'they don't build 'em like they used to, buncha crap nowadays.' he replaced the compressor and for his services i was out $350. damn. oh well, at least my fridge works again... it was free after all, right?

so now if i add that $350 to the equation, it's really $850 out of my pocket for three fridges. that brings the average price to $284 each one. and if each one really only lasts an average of three years, that's about $95 a year. anyways... back to fridge #2.

fridge #2 went on for a little longer and crapped out on me again at an odd time. i live in a really old building and the owner decided to try and update the electrical system so it's more up to date. the day after they messed around with my electrical stuff, my fridge stopped working, so i blamed it on them. the electrician came over and checked it out. the fridge would start, then shut off after 30 seconds and start again. the fridge would never get cold. electrician said my compressor was shot. at that moment all i could remember was the repairman a couple years back grumbling about, "not makin 'em like they used to." so i accepted my loss and went out fridge shopping again.

i waited a few days before making the purchase. i wanted to wait for payday, cuz i was pretty low on funds. in the meantime i had to keep the essentials cool somehow. and by essentials, i mean beer and water. because it was cold out, i kept beer and water by the window and left the window open a little. and this worked out nicely while i was fridgeless. i might be the first dude i know who's said something nice about the cold weather this season. thanks mother nature! you rock! i don't care what the kids on facebook are saying about you.

that brings us to today. got a decent looking fridge for $500 altogether (that includes delivery and the $10 i tipped the delivery dudes). and i'm happy to be able to keep things cool once again. it makes me reflect on the passing of time. there's so many ways to measure time; days, weeks, months, years. you can even try more abstract concepts like serious relationships (since i've been on my own, 4), cars (0), jobs (1), arrests (0), TV's (3, haven't paid for one yet, but that's another blog for another day), computers (2, if you count the netbook, 3), hangovers (countless). in this case, i'll measure by fridges. i've been living on my own now for the length of 3 refrigerators.