lisaviolet's diary

Last Tuesday, I walked into the garage and it smelled weird. Like something was burning. I checked all around the garage (you know when you smell something and you sniff so much you get lightheaded? that was me sniffing around the garage) and didn't see anything unusual. I walked outside and sniffed out there, maybe it was coming from next door. Hmm. Nothing.

A little while later, I went back and sniffed again. Still there, but it didn't seem as bad. A little while later, it was bad. I went out back and got Brian. He sniffed. Couldn't find anything, but he smelled something. And he saw something that I didn't, he asked if it looked smokey to me. No, it looks normal. So, we ended up unplugging a bunch of stuff, shut the door to the garage (in case the smell was coming in from outside) and waited. The next time we checked, the garage was horrible. And there was smoke coming from under the freezer. Yeah, the freezer had gone bad and fortunately, this happened during the day and not at night when we were in bed and when we were both home. It could have been a lot worse. A lot. It's scary to even think about.

The freezer was unplugged, I came back to the computer and checked out the local Lowe's inventory, did a little bit of quick research and ordered a 14.4 cubic foot upright freezer that was on sale for $398.00 with a $50.00 rebate. I ordered it and Brian went down to pick it up. Got it home, moved the old freezer out (we still hadn't opened the door since it was unplugged), let the new freezer run for about four hours and I started moving food. Some of it seemed a little soft, but the freezer still had frost in it and I don't think anything thawed out.

Then I checked on the rebate. It was through our local utility company and it was a recycle rebate. They needed the old freezer for us to get the fifty bucks. I signed up for the pick up. Then I read the rebate rules. The freezer has to have been plugged in and turned on for at least an hour before they pick it up so they can check to see if it still runs. Uh oh. I called the number on the form and left a message about canceling the pick up. Brian went to his mom's house that night (his sister was in town) and his brother told him they don't check, just put it out, fifty dollars is fifty dollars. (And besides, even if they didn't haul it away, Brian had already gotten the okay from Lowe's for us to bring the old one to them since that's where we got the new one.)

I figured I'd just wait to see if they called to double check the pick up and they did. So, it hadn't gotten canceled. When they came out, all they did was look inside (Brian thinks it was to make sure it was empty). It had been "on" for hours and wasn't cold at all. After handing him a slip of paper that said they'd been here, they hauled it away.

I did save the basket that had been in the bottom of the old unit and it fit nicely in the new unit. Which was a good thing because accessing the bottom shelf could be pretty hard on the knees, even for someone close to the ground like me. Much easier to pull out a basket.

It's always something, yanno?

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Tuesday, June 30, 2015